The Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship was born on July 26, 1987, at the home of the Rev. Raymond J. and Barbara Pontier, near Narrowsburg, NY. Two years later, it became incorporated and affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association and then joined the Unitarian Universalist District of Metropolitan New York.

The Rev. Raymond Pontier began his ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church. Starting in Kingston, New York, he then pastored to the Deerpark Reformed Church in Port Jervis, New York, before making his way to the Allwood Community Church in Clifton, New Jersey. He served that congregation for 18 years before resigning due, in part, to his liberal stance on such things as abortion rights, fair housing, and theological differences with the moderately Calvinistic denomination.

Following his resignation and his leaving of the Reformed Church of America, Rev. Pontier was asked to serve as part-time minister to the Lakeland Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Wayne, NJ, and became fully fellowshipped with the UUA. Upon purchase of a second home in Narrowsburg and retiring from the Lakeland congregation, he sought to find like-minded individuals interested in the formation of a liberal religious congregation and established the Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in 1987.

One of the like-minded people that he got to know was Bud Rue, who, along with his wife, Ann, had founded Innisfree, an educational summer camp. Established in 1970, Innisfree served as a youth hostel, hosted drama workshops, numerous experiential and outdoor education programs, and served as the first home of the Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for 10 years. The Rues, retired teachers from New Jersey, moved to Milanville, Pennsylvania, full-time in 1988. Their son Tom had been living at Innisfree for a few years by this time and served as an incorporator and as the fellowship's first President after the formal organization in 1990.

Bud was the driving force behind Habitat for Humanity of Wayne County when it was incorporated in 1989, and served to push the young UU Fellowship to form a social justice committee and to sponsor a Walk for Social Justice. While not in good health and against the advice of his family, Bud insisted on walking the five miles from Narrowsburg to Milanville on the first walk in 1994. On the River Road, a mile from Narrowsburg, he collapsed. He was immediately transported to his home at Innisfree, where he died the same day, October 24, 1993.

Innisfree was sold in 1998. The Pontiers retired to Lakewood, Florida, in August 1997. In early October 1998, after meeting in the Delaware Highland Conservancy's Butterfly Barn for the summer, the Fellowship moved to the Berlin Township Community Center in Beach Lake. During the coronavirus pandemic, a move was made to the present meeting space in the Narrowsburg Union.

The Fellowship has continued to meet regularly and remains a vibrant lay-led congregation.

In 1999, the Fellowship called Laurie Stuart, Pontier's former daughter-in-law, to serve as the part-time Lay Commissioned Minister to officiate rites of passage, such as weddings, funerals, and child dedications, for Fellowship members as well as members of the community without church affiliation. In the fall of 2006, Laurie followed her call to ministry and enrolled in the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California. She currently serves the congregation in a part-time capacity as our President of the Board of Directors, and she also travels to deliver sermons at other UU churches and congregations in the area. Her full-time day job, which she describes as an essential part of her community ministry, is publishing The River Reporter, the area's award-winning, trusted source of local news.

The Fellowship enjoys strong lay leadership and is an integral part of the Metro District of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. A fair-share honor congregation, it routinely avails itself of learning and networking opportunities in the Metro District and the denomination at large.

The congregation aspires to receive the status of a Welcoming Congregation.