The Interim Period
1776-1787
The Revolutionary War

    This is a period of general confusion and moral disintegration.  Owing to financial poverty of the church, its low spiritual state, and the dilapidated condition of the Meeting-House, which made it unfit for services in the cold weather, services may have been omitted during a portion of this time.  Interim pastors included the Rev. William Adams, the Rev. Emerson Foster, the Rev. Solomon Wolcott, the Rev. William Patten, the Rev. John Murray.

Interesting note!

For more information on the burning of New London, check out this excellent website which has contemporary newspaper accounts of the Sept. 6th 1781 British attack on New London & Groton!

    In January of 1780 the church was permitted to use St. James' Church (then on the Parade) for worship, "during the severity of the season."  This church was destroyed in the Burning of New London, September 6th, 1781.  In 1784, the Saybrook Platform, which constituted the state legislature a sort of Congregational presbytery was disestablished and liberty was granted to Christians of every name.

    The last sermon in the Saltonstall Meeting House is believed to have been preached by the Rev. Roswell Cook of the North Parish, August 23rd, 1786.