Mount Tabor is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP)[4] in Parsippany–Troy Hills Township, Morris County, New Jersey, United States.

[6] Camp meetings, which are outdoor religious revival services, began for the purpose of revitalizing faith, particularly in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

When the owner of the land eventually told the Camp Meeting Association that he was going to sell the property, a group began searching the countryside for a new campsite; they chose a wooded spread of land thick with underbrush and set upon a hill, which they named "Mount Tabor", after the location mentioned in the Bible as the place of Christ's Transfiguration.

[7] The hill they found for the relocation of the Newark Conference camp meeting was part of a piece of farmland owned by Stephan Dickerson.

The Dickerson family had owned the Foodtown store at the bottom of the hill on Route 53, however it was closed in 2018 due to dwindling business.

In 1869, the same year Mount Tabor was incorporated, the Newark Conference began to establish another camp meeting in Ocean Grove, at the Jersey Shore.

[9] The state supreme court forced each community to become officially incorporated into the neighboring municipalities of Parsippany-Troy Hills and Neptune Township, respectively.

Mount Tabor homeowners own their houses but lease the land on which the homes are built (a land-lease arrangement).

In August 1869, crowds of Methodist campers, many of whom were from the large industrial cities in northern New Jersey, gathered in the rustic area for the ten-day camp meeting.

Over the years the more affluent members of the community, prominent lawyers, ministers and doctors from the Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, Elizabeth and Morristown areas, were building decorative Victorian-style homes (albeit small enough to fit on the 16-by-32-foot (4.9 by 9.8 m) tent lots), to make their encampment in the summer more comfortable.

During one early Sunday camp meeting it was said that such an enormous crowd of people (of up to 10,000) gathered that, besides the three regular services, two additional ministers preached simultaneously at different areas in Trinity Place, sometimes known as "The Circle".

Over the years, the crowds that swarmed into Mount Tabor for the annual Camp Meeting diminished except for a few hundred persons who decided to stay and set up year-round homes where tents once stood.

Some older residents who attended the camp meetings believed the decreasing crowds were caused by regulations such as the one that prohibited parking of wagons on the campgrounds.

Mount Tabor homeowners (known as "leaseholders") paid a yearly rent to the Camp Meeting Association for their lots with their town assessment and township taxes.

As the tents gave way to small cottages, development in Mount Tabor spread out from Trinity Place, an area that included three octagonal buildings - the Tabernacle, Bethel, and Ebenezer pavilions.

What has come to be known as Children's Day started in the 1870s as a Sunday School parade around Trinity Place, the original location of the camp meeting religious services.

Children's Day has evolved into a unique community festival in Mount Tabor and is still a focal point of summer on "The Hill".

Since then there has been no debt and Mount Tabor is running strictly on a cash basis, with a budget of approximately a quarter million dollars.

As the years rolled by, many cottages were converted into winter residences by connection with deep water mains and by the modernization of walls and heating apparatus.

Among these were the hard surfacing of the roads and the renovating of the basement of the Tabernacle for the CMA, the fire department, and the post office.

This coalition, called the "Builder's Club" that has since dissolved, was another demonstration of the bond of friendship that guided the citizens of Mount Tabor through the years.

Each weekend, members practiced on these moving targets, thus controlling the varmint colony and keeping it from invading the town.

The unsightly steel tank next to the water tower was removed, and one by one, the CMA started refurbishing the buildings they owned to their former glory; so far the old firehouse, the Town Manager's house, and the Tabernacle have had facelifts and more.

[1] Mount Tabor Lake and Powder Mill Pond lie outside the CDP, across the Morristown Line rail tracks.