Mills, though nominally pastor of the church from 1769 to 1786, was absent from the charge for several years -- having been driven from Bedford by the distressing circumstances attending the war. In the meantime, their former pastor, Rev. Eliphalet Ball returned and assumed the supply and charge of the church, and remained in this connection till 1784 when he was dismissed. Mr. Ball having spent four years at Amity, in Woodbridge, Conn., removed to Saratoga County New York, 1788, taking with him a part of his Bedford congregation. The settlement for a long time was called Ball Town, now Ballston.

Mr. Ball was the stated supply of this church in the stormy times of the American Revolution, when the people were struggling for their independence. When the old church, built in 1680, was burned to the ground, having stood an hundred years, and having proved amiable to the hearts of the people of God for a century, they stood silently by and saw it reduced to ashes by the British army under Lieut. Col. Tarleton. An old veteran still lingering among us, almost ninety years old, remembers having heard her mother say she saw the smoke of the old church rising to heaven, as sweet and holy incense, as the timbers yielded to the devouring element, though living a mile and a half distant. Mr. Ball saw his own house (the parsonage), his church, and the entire village reduced to ashes by the British troops; but he lived to see anew house of worship built on a more commanding spot, and no doubt on a larger scale; so that the latter house exceeded the former in its external proportions, if not in the internal manifestations of the spirit of God. We have reason to believe that the records of the church kept in the parsonage were destroyed with it, as we have no records of the church preserved until after peace was declared.