 John G. Thomas—a physician and pastor of the Vaughnsville Congregational Church—designed a communion outfit after noticing "a communicant with a diseased mouth condition".Thomas applied for a patent for his invention on August 2, 1893, in which he wrote that he "invented certain new and useful improvements in communion service" which would "provide an individual or separate cup for the use of each person at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, commonly called the communion service…" (Serial No.482,186).