Union Chapel’s Harvest Sunday honors Sylvester Manor

Union Chapel in the Grove hosts Harvest Sunday on Aug. 24, honoring Sylvester Manor Educational Farm. 

Reverend Galen Guengerich will preach about “The Best We Know.” Music will be provided by Trustees, staff and friends of Sylvester Manor.

Sylvester Manor, which once encompassed all of Shelter Island, was originally a Native American hunting, fishing, and farming ground. From 1652 to 2006, it was home to 11 generations of its original European settler family. The Sylvester family acquired the property to be a provisioning plantation for the family’s sugar interests in Barbados. Enslaved Africans and their descendants worked the property, along with indentured Native Americans.

The Manor became smaller, with portions given or sold away from the family; the 235-acre core contains remnants of its earliest days, including an Afro-Indigenous Burial Ground and memorial to Quakers who were given refuge.

Now a nonprofit educational farm, the Manor teaches young farmers about sustainable agriculture, while providing fresh produce for the Island community. 

Rev. Guengerich has led Union Chapel’s Harvest Sunday for many years, designing a program especially for the service. He recently retired as senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church, an historic congregation located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He served All Souls for more than 30 years, the last 18 as senior minister.

He is the author of “God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age” (2013); “The Way of Gratitude: A New Spirituality for Today” (2020); and “Dwell in Possibility: Meditations on Conquering Life’s Challenges” (2024). He has written opinion pieces for Reuters, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, TIME magazine, and others, and has appeared on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. 

He lives on Shelter Island with his wife, Holly Atkinson, MD, Affiliate Medical Professor, Department of Clinical Medicine at the CUNY School of Medicine. 

Join us for Harvest Sunday in our shady grove for our second-to-last service of the summer with Rev. Guengerich. Please bring a chair. In case of rain, the service will move indoors. A reception, catered by STARS Café, will follow the service.

Next week: Our Closing Service, on Aug. 31, will be Poetry Sunday, featuring the work of Christina Rossetti. Music will be performed by Island Folk.