The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut 1638-39 made the Congregational Church the established church and, after allowing for a few concessions, it remained so until 1818 with the ratification of a new state constitution.
Upon the sale of the Western Lands in March of 1738 the Town of Kent stretched from Litchfield on the east to the New York line on the west. While early settlers first applied them to the obligation to clear at least six acres, build a house not less than eighteen feet square and seven feet from floor to ceiling, and then survive on that site for three years, it wasn’t long before the community built its first church somewhat north of the present-day Kent Congregational Church in 1741.
For nine years that was the only church. But twelve or fifteen miles on a Sabbath often proved a barrier to attending services and so in 1750 the inhabitants of the eastern part of Kent petitioned the General Court for a new society to be called Society of East Greenwich in honor of King George II who lived in the manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent. In early Congregationalism it was the society, and not the church, which was incorporated.
At first Services were held in the log schoolhouse located about a mile west of the present town center, but in 1756 the first congregation gathered and took the covenant. Services continued to be conducted at the schoolhouse for the next ten years and it was not until December, 1767 that that they were conducted in the new, although incomplete, building which sat slightly forward of the present structure.