As a salutary precaution against domestic insurrections and other sudden dangers, each white male inhabitant of the province "from the ages of sixteen years and upwards" was, by an act assented to on the 28th of July, 1757, required to carry with him "on Sabbath days, fasts and festivals," to the place of public worship within the town or district where he resided, "one good gun, or pair of pistols, with at least six charges of gunpowder and ball.
In 1764 the Rev. Samuel Trink, discharged the duties of rector of the parish for three years. Removing in 1767 to Savannah, his station for the ensuing years was filled by the Rev. Edward Ellington. When he resigned the pastorate there were forty communicants in St. Paul's Church, and during his ministry he baptized four hundred and twenty-eight persons, and married sixty-two couples. During the war, St. Paul's Church, which was a small wooden structure, perished, there being no clergyman in charge, and no worshippers within its frail walls. In 1783 the Grand Jury, in their presentments to the court, state that there was not a place of worship in the town. In 1786 a second sacred edifice, was erected on the site of the first, and it in turn, gave away to the present structure, the foundations of which were laid in 1818. In 1789, the Rev. M. Palmer was in charge of the church, and he was followed by the Rev. Adam Boyd. During the rectorship of the Rev. Mr. Boyd, which began in 1794
