CENTERVILLE — In the summer of 1872, 61 ministers of the Christian churches and clergy of several denominations participated in the first 10-day camp meeting of the New England Convention of Christian Churches on the shores of Nantucket Sound in Centerville. They were housed in tent platforms.

That primitive summer camp evolved into the permanent Craigville Village, comprising 115 cottages, a hotel, a historic tabernacle and a year-round retreat and conference center for a range of religious and educational groups.

Craigville Village will be celebrating its 150th anniversary in a big way with many special events this summer focusing on its history and strong sense of community.

Craigville was “quite radical” from the beginning with a woman as its first preacher, abolitionist participants and is still “radically ecumenical,” President of the Christian Camp Meeting Association Bill McKinney said this week.

The conference and retreat center was incorporated in February 1970 under the auspices of the Congregational Churches of Massachusetts. In addition to housing 8,000 overnight guests during the summer, the center hosts year-round retreats for several Roman Catholic high schools as well as people of Jewish and Buddhist faiths, McKinney said. Catholic Masses are also held in the tabernacle that holds several hundred. 

“There is far more awareness of religious diversity,” McKinney said, “and there are all kinds of families. There are no religious restrictions.”

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The circular logo chosen for the anniversary with the iconic tabernacle at the center, surrounded by the words Faith, Family, Friends and Future, “is a fairly good summary of Craigville,” McKinney said.

The first three words of the logo came from a prominent former Craigville resident, Dave Gavitt, basketball coach at Providence College, founder of the Big East Conference, chairperson of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, and president of USA Basketball and senior executive vice-president of the Boston Celtics.

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Gavitt used the first three terms in a lay-led service of reflections by Craigville residents at the tabernacle one summer. The 20-member volunteer anniversary committee added “future” to complete the logo that will be inscribed on large banners designed by Craigville resident Sean Lahey and hung around the village and printed on small yard signs.

Gavitt died in 2011, but his widow, Julie, still has a summer home in the village bought by her parents almost 60 years ago. In a phone interview, she said her late husband’s words were “really a creed for Dave in his lifetime and are a guiding light for all of us.”

Julie Gavitt said the tabernacle is not just a religious building but “a place of community.” She stressed “the joy and commitment” of all the volunteers who run the village except for the retreat center, which is run by a management agency.

The anniversary celebration pays tribute to the beginnings of the camp meeting and traces its evolution with a history lecture, an archive housed in Barnstable’s Sturgis Library and special exhibits sponsored by the Centerville Historical Museum and Heritage Museum and Gardens in Sandwich.

A new Craigville website, at craigville.org, launched in April, features more history, a timeline and a collection of hundreds of historic photographs and vignettes of some of the village founders and leaders.

The cottage owners, with many families of three generations, will also play a role in the celebration, hosting several social events.

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Terry Franklin, president of Craigville Cottage Owners Association and chairwoman of the anniversary committee, described what Craigville means to her and many others who have lived there for generations. She is one of the newer homeowners and comes from the D.C. area, but she spent summers a mile away from Craigville and took tennis lessons there as a teen. Her children and grandchildren come every summer.

“It’s really idyllic for families,” she said. “They don’t have to leave once they’re here. It’s the kind of place that keeps you coming back. There are not that many places where you can go and in your 360 views see a river, a freshwater lake and the ocean, with two open green spaces to boot."

Specifically, that would be the Centerville River, Lake Elizabeth, Craigville Beach, the green in center of the village and the field atop the bluff area.

"And all this is shared with the thousands of guests who visit the Retreat Center annually. It’s not unusual to bump into someone, who visited here for a retreat as a school kid, who has brought their family back after many years,” Franklin said.

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Franklin told of one summer resident, Alan Shoemaker, now in his 80s, who remembers sailing on Lake Elizabeth in the 1940s. His cottage is filled with returning adult children and their children every summer.

“I would say what makes Craigville special is how you feel when you are here,” Franklin said. “Our neighborhood landscape is dotted with houses that date back to the late 1800s. The architecture of the tabernacle, the post office, the Craigville Inn and The Manor, takes you back in time. It has an overwhelming sense of place that you can truly feel and makes for a special quality of life.”

The association looks out for the interests of the cottage owners and contributes to the upkeep of the village roads, parks and other improvements, as a cost share with the Camp Meeting Association, Franklin said.

Every summer, the homeowners host several social events, including an ice breaker, a July 4th parade, Illumination Night, Halloween in July, and recently added a couple of food truck nights on the bluff.

This summer, the cottage owners also will participate in several events for the anniversary, as greeters at tabernacle events and in “Craigville: The Musical.” 

Many community members are expected to participate in the Great Craigville Listen, where community members can be interviewed about their own history in Craigville and future hopes for the community. That undertaking on specified dates in July will be led by the Craigville Youth Committee. The recordings will be part of the Craigville archive.

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Other highlights of the summer celebration include a history lecture series, a music series celebrating the 141st anniversary of the Tabernacle’s Hook and Hastings organ and a string and jazz concert.

The tradition of “Big Sunday” on July 29, an ecumenical worship service, will feature the Rev. John Dorhauer, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, the successor to Craigville’s founders, followed by a community-wide picnic for 400.

A tour of five village homes will be organized by the Red Lily Pond Project, a local environmental group, which will also launch a lighted kayak procession on the pond in August.

More information about the anniversary events can be found on the website, www.craigville.org.