Walter Revere Marsh, 88, of Goochland has attended sessions at the Kirkland Campground revival center since he was 2. His grandmother's family had a 'tent'--a summer structure--there where the family would stay for two weeks each summer. ram View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Revivals at Northern Neck woodland recalls model that Kirkland Grove Campground provided as early site of Baptist tent-camp meetings

Revivals at Northern Neck woodland recalls model that Kirkland Grove Campground provided as early site of Baptist tent-camp meetings

ROB HEDELT •   Rob Hedelt's archive •   E-mail Rob Hedelt

Date published: 8/28/2003

By ROB HEDELT

EATHSVILLE--When Kirkland Grove Campground's hotels, cottages and outdoor tabernacle became the center of Northern Neck life in Robert Brann's youth, little else matched the two weeks he spent worshipping and socializing with thousands here at Baptist revivals.

"I'd rather have come here than gone to heaven," said the 79-year-old resident of Village in Richmond County, exaggerating just a little bit. "It was at a time on the farm when people could take a short break to come here. For two weeks, this was the place to be."

Brann was one of hundreds attending four nights of revivals last week on the site founded in 1892 and designated in 1991 as a Virginia Historic Landmark.

He said that when adults filled the tabernacle's rough pine benches in its heyday, young people spent many of the evenings "promenading" in a fenced-off area known as the bullpen.

"It was nothing more than a path lined with sawdust and stands that sold ice cream or candy, but each night we'd walk in circles for hours, seeing the girls and being seen," said Brann said.

He added, "A lot of young men met their wives there. Back then, there weren't many other places that could happen. There weren't movie halls or other places to gather in the Northern Neck, just country stores here and there."

I visited Kirkland Grove last week at the invitation of Reggie Brann, a high school friend who's now a member of the committee overseeing the campground for the Rappahannock Baptist Association.

Gone are the campground's hotels and its numerous "tents"--misnomers because they were actually 41 two-story wooden cottages that once ringed the 23-acre parcel of tall oaks.

Still remaining is the tin-roofed tabernacle building, 100-foot square with open sides, a shiny tin roof, a speaking platform and pillars hand-hewn years ago from trees on the property. The benches put in 100 years ago are comfortable curves worn into their backrests; one even has notches cut to mark the tabernacle's early days.

These days, the Baptist organization holds a week of revivals each year to carry on the tradition at Kirkland Grove, which served as a model for church camp meetings by Baptists and other denominations.

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Date published: 8/28/2003