Second suspicious fire hits Methodist campground
RIDGEVILLE - Families arrived soon after the fire engines to survey the damage Friday at Cypress Campground in the wake of the second suspicious fire at the historical site in as many months.
Some had attended annual revivals at the nine ruined cabins or "tents" going back generations. All the early-morning fire left were brick chimneys, metal furnaces and the occasional blackened post poking up from an ashen footprint. Warped tin from the roofs lay on the ground, still crinkling from the heat, as a smell like a spent campfire wafted from the ground.
Near the middle of the row of burned buildings was the tent that Peggy Myers' father built. If she could save one thing, Myers said, it would be a table that seated 18 where the family used to gather until the wee hours of the morning.
"Other than that, they were material things," Myers said, "but there were a lot of memories around that table."
Families like hers would come to the primitive accommodations, with no electricity or running water, for Camp Meeting every October. The campground's 53 tents curve around an open-air tabernacle and the Cypress United Methodist Church. The site has been in use since 1794, when Methodist missionary Francis Asbury arrived on horseback to preach to surrounding communities.
Firefighters were dispatched around 2:30 a.m. Fire Chief Herbert Cummings said it took members of a dozen rural fire departments in Berkeley and Dorchester counties a couple of hours to put out all the flames.
An April 29 fire at the campground destroyed five cabins and damaged a sixth. Friday's fire started in almost the exact spot where the earlier one ended -the 14th tent in a row of 26. A cinder block wall helped d firefighters stop it from spreading beyond tent 22.
Though Dorchester County Sheriff's investigators weren't ready to label it arson, many of the families were; at least two pledged $5,000 each in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.
C.S. Carter, who owned the building where the fire started, was one of those who offered a reward from his own pocket. Carter said the previous fire caused minor damage to his tent.
Lynn Hoover, one of the campground's five trustees, said there was an existing $2,100 reward through Crime Stoppers for information about the first fire.
"The first time we thought it could just be an accident," Hoover said. "I'm praying for the person who's doing it."
Sheriff's 1st Sgt. Michael Miller would only say the fires were "suspicious." The one in April left such extensive damage that investigators were unable to say whether an accelerant was used, Miller said, and the new investigation was just getting underway.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 554-1111. Anonymous tips can also be submitted at www.5541111.com. Texters can send anonymous tips to CRIMES (274637), beginning the message with "tip213."
Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.
