painted and became dark with age. The Great Awakening swept through the American colonies in the early- to mid-1740s. One of the main results of this revivalist movement was the rapid growth of the Baptist Church in America, and North Stonington became a bastion of this denomination in Connecticut. Much of the congregation for this church came from Rev. Fish's flock, and the new Baptists established their own meeting house in 1743. This was the first Baptist church for both Stonington and North Stonington; today it is located at Pendleton Hill in the town's northeastern corner, but the original building sat a short distance to the south. A stone marker is now at the site. Turmoil within Rev. Fish's congregation culminated in the departure of another group that formed a "Strict Congregationalist Church" in 1746 more than a mile west of the Village. This schism was deeply traumatic for the Rev. Fish, who later wrote that the "order of families as well as of churches and religious families, is vilely broke, dissolved and lost… the reins of government are thrown upon the neck, and nothing but anarchy and confusion reigns." During 1817–1827, the Congregationalist and Strict Congregationalist churches reunited and built a common church, which is the current location of the town's Congregational Church. The establishment of the other two Baptist churches was considerably less dramatic. The Rev. Waite Palmer organized the Second Baptist Church in 1765, located at the intersection of Pendleton Hill Road and Stillman Road. The third Baptist Church was established in 1828 to serve the rapidly growing population of millworkers in the village of North Stonington. Men from the town participated in the French and Indian War of the 1760s; some marched as far as the siege of Montreal. But it was the Revolutionary War that garnered the town's enthusiasm. It is difficult to determine the precise number of townsmen who joined the fight, given that North Stonington still formed part of Stonington and clerks did not distinguish between the two locales. However, pension records and other documents from the 19th century indicate that numerous men joined various Continental and militia units, particularly the 6th and 8th Militia Regiments, the latter of which joined Gen. George Washington's army in the Battle of Long Island in the autumn of 1776. Three North Society men assumed notable roles in the war: Thomas Wheeler served first as a junior