Third Baptist Church, Stonington (1833)

The village of North Stonington in the Town of North Stonington was developed in the nineteenth century as a mill village and was called Milltown. Inspired by the evangelism Jabez S. Swan, first pastor of the Huntington Street Baptist Church in New London, a group of Milltown residents gathered at the home of Samuel Chapman to form a Baptist church on December 25, 1828. It was the Third Baptist Church in North Stonington, following the First Baptist Church (formed in 1743) and the Second Baptist Church (formed in 1765). The Third Baptist Church initially held its services in private homes and in the District #2 Schoolhouse. Its membership grew and a church, called the Milltown Baptist Meeting House, was built in 1833 at what is now 29 Main Street on land donated by Mrs. Stephen Avery, widow of Stephen Avery. North Stonington’s Fourth Baptist Church, also known as the Laurel Glen Chapel, was dismantled in 1940 and attached to the rear of the Third Baptist Church.