Camp Ground looking down toward wharf

Camp Ground looking down toward wharf

View of Bayside / Northport Campground looking down Main Street toward Ruggles Park. The steamship wharf would be just out of sight to the right. The last building on the right (with the corner turret) is the Northport Hotel. HISTORY: The Wesleyan Camp Ground at Bayside "is getting to be the most popular resort on the bay," noted the Belfast Progressive Age on August 8, 1873. The character had changed considerably since the first camp meeting in 1849. "The grove is lively with health and pleasure seekers," observed a Belfast Weekly Advertiser writer a year later. Campers were building cottages, and excursionists were coming by the thousands to enjoy swimming, fishing, boating, and sports in addition to the camp meetings. A large boarding house opened in 1876 as new streets were being laid and the grounds beautified. The Northport Hotel opened in 1891, three years after the Waverly burned. It was a Victorian "grand old lady" with 64 rooms, a large porch overlooking the bay, and "all modern improvements, telephone, mail three times daily, pure mineral water, perfect sanitary arrangements and first-class table." Rates were $2 to $2.50 per day and $80 to $12 per week. A new pavilion, with seating for 1,000 people, also opened in 1891. It was an ideal venue for worship services and Chautauqua assemblies as well as lectures, concerts, musicals, dances, and other entertainment. Fire consumed the hotel in 1919, and a much plainer Dutch's Inn was built on the site. The building still stood at the top of Ruggles Park in 2016.