In 1928, soon after graduation from the Divinity School at Harvard, James Luther Adams, Leslie Pennington, Frank Holmes and several other men in the greater Boston area began meeting for regular discussions. At first they prepared papers on topics of their own choosing and read them to the group. It proved too individualistic and fissiparous. To escape this genre they assigned common readings, a practice which remains a distinctive feature of the group. As the discussions deepened, the men moved from afternoon meetings to gatherings of two and three days duration. By the summer of 1930, a week's seminar was held at Star Island off the coast of New Hampshire.

In 1934, an expanded group prepared three papers on "The State of The Unitarian Fellowship," for presentation at the Ministers' Institute at Greenfield, Massachusetts, from which event the group takes its name. In the same year, the annual fall retreat at Senexet House in north east Connecticut was held. By the end of World War II a pattern of spring and fall retreats was established and continues to this day.

In 1948 the group published its agreement on the state of Unitarianism in the Christian Register, taking the entire issue. For information on . . .Christian Register, May, 1948, Vol. 127, No. 5, "The Greenfield Group - Its Beginnings and History," by Frank O. Holmes and Robert H. Schacht, Jr. . . . click here

Through the years the group has developed a set of disciplines by which they operate. The disciplines cover the administrative structure and sundry details of a more spiritual sort ranging from silence before meals and chapels to the expectation that ministers will accept all assignments given to them by the Program Committee.

By the early 1970's the group had several women as menbers and the number has continued to grow as more women have entered the ministry. Since its inception, the group has served over 150 clergy, providing an opportunity to discuss common themes twice a year. An archive of all the papers and responses presented to Greenfield Group is maintained at Andover/Harvard Library at Harvard Divinity School.

The group met for many years at Senexet House in Woodstock, Connecticut, at The Commons in Peterboro, New Hampshire, and currently at Our Lady of Peace in Naragansett, Rhode Island.

[Drawn from materials by Nat Lauriat, Duncan Howlett, Robert Schacht, Frank Holmes and James Hunt.]