Camp Quinipet Sunday at Union Chapel on July 16
Union Chapel celebrates Camp Quinipet Sunday on July 16.
Reverend Matthew Querns, Quinipet’s Spiritual Life Coordinator, will preach at this outdoor interdenominational service. Quinipet staff members contribute to the service as readers and ushers and might even sing a song.
Chapel Music Director Linda Betjeman and the Cottage Trio will provide the music.
Union Chapel and Camp Quinipet share similar historical roots, both beginning as Methodist camps, although Union Chapel became interdenominational about a decade after its founding.
“Union Chapel is honored to celebrate Camp Quinipet’s 77 years as a valued member of the Shelter Island community,” Union Chapel Chairman Jay Sterling said, “They enhance the spiritual growth of thousands of campers and retreat visitors and offer their facilities to Islanders and off-Islanders alike.”
About Camp Quinipet
In the early 1800s, this picturesque spot on Shore Road was the landing for the ferry. By 1820, it was the home of the Jennings farm, and in 1850, the estate of the Stearns family, giving their family name to nearby Stearns Point Road, the wooded road that runs parallel to the beach.
In Union Chapel’s commemorative book, “All Are Welcome: 150 Years of Shelter Island’s Union Chapel in the Grove,” author Carrie Cooperider says, “A pamphlet from 1921 advertises ‘Quinipet Camp: A Salt Water Camp for Girls,’ and A Handbook of Private Schools for American Boys and Girls from 1921-1922 describes Camp Quinipet as ‘a salt water camp opened in 1921 by Myron T. Scudder of the Scudder School on the estate of John Noble Stearns…made up of three separate camps: Camp Thetis for the older girls, Camp Galatea for the younger and Camp Neptune for adults.’”
The following year, Quinipet became a boys’ camp.
Rev. Theodore C. Boblin, in his speech for the dedication of Camp Quinipet as a Methodist Training Camp in 1947, cited the five tenets of Christianity, which are chiseled into the five rocks on the camp’s grounds: Courage, Honesty, Humility, Faith and Love.
Dr. Boblin was resident minister of Union Chapel and instrumental in getting the United Methodist Church to buy the site. “The relationship between the current Camp Quinipet and Union Chapel is strictly through Dr. Boblin,” Jay Sterling explained. “The Methodists had nothing to do with the governance of Union Chapel after 1900.”
Today, Camp Quinipet is used by many different denominations and non-religious groups and serves over 5,800 people. Led by Executive Director Brooke Bradley, the camp is owned and operated by the New York Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Music at the Chapel service will be provided by Linda Betjeman and the Cottage Trio, composed of violinist Ann Marie Chubet, her husband, James, on keyboard, and Jeannie Woelker on cello.
Join us on Sunday, July 16 at 10:30 a.m. for our outdoor service and bring a chair or blanket, if you’re able. A reception, catered by Stars Café, will follow the service.
Next week: Community Sunday, honoring the Shelter Island Police Benevolent Association, with Vicar Charles McCarron of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.
“All Are Welcome: 150 years of Shelter Island’s Union Chapel in the Grove” by Carrie Cooperider is available for purchase after the service, at Finley’s Fiction or by contacting Trustee Kathy Dinkel.
