As the result of this awakening on the 13th of October, 1790, twenty-three, ten males and thirteen females, united to form the First Congregational Church in Haverhill. Well might these disciples, as they entered into covenant with each other, exclaim, "Hitherto the Lord hath helped us." Toward the close of 1791 Rev. Ethan Smith, who had been supplying the pulpit for nearly a year, accepted a call to be their pastor, expecting the town would unite in his settlement. But at the last moment, through the efforts of the north part of the town, all votes in town meeting with reference to settling Mr. Smith, were rescinded, but the people in this end were determined to go on and voluntarily assumed the responsibility of his support, and he was ordained and installed their pastor January 25, 1792, by a council held at the house of Ezekiel Ladd.

Mr. Smith's field of labor covered the whole town and also the town of Piermont. Almost a third of the membership of the church at the time of his dismission resided in Piermont. Soon after the installation of Mr. Smith, eleven members of the church in Piermont not relishing the liberal preaching of Rev. Mr. Richards, their pastor, withdrew from his church and united with the church in Haverhill, retaining for themselves the privilege of going back to Piermont whenever a majority of them should decide that it was expedient. This church in Piermont became extinct. In 1803 thirty members of the Haverhill church, resident in Piermont, availed themselves of this privilege and withdrew to reorganize the church in Piermont.

The first few years of Mr. Smith's ministry were greatly blessed. Seventy-six had been admitted to church membership by the end of 1793, counting the twenty-three original members, mostly by confession of their faith.

In 1793, however, began a protracted controversy between the Newbury and Haverhill churches which had a various injurious effect upon the spiritual interests of both communities. The subject of this controversy well illustrates the opinions and practices of the times. Two members of the Newbury church, residing in North Haverhill, had taken an active part in defeating the settlement of Mr. Smith by the town. These men were afterwards charged by the church in Haverhill with obstinately refusing to pay their "preaching rates" assessed by the town and with escaping in an "unlawful manner" from the prison into which they had been thrown with eighteen others, because of their refusal to pay this tax.

We are not surprised that there was in Newbury a strong feeling that these members of the Newbury church were not so greatly at fault in refusing to pay the tax assessed by the town of Haverhill for preaching in Haverhill. Their sympathy for their own members led them to hesitate to act in accordance with the preaching sentiment of the day, that every one was bound to sustain in his own town the preaching which the majority of his fellow citizens had decided to pay for. That this was the prevailing sentiment is abundantly shown by the fact that the different councils called in the course of the controversy, in which were represented leading churches in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, unanimously held these two brethren to be in the wrong.

The church in Newbury finally acquiesed in this decision and excommunicated one of them and continued the other in their fellowship only upon repentance and confession of his sin. It ought to he added in justice to the church, that the excommunicated brother had shown himself in other respects rather a poor Christian. During Mr. Smith's ministry five members were excommunicated for “deserting the church and joining the Baptists." In their treatment of these deserters the church followed the usual practice of the times. Three were excommunicated for the sin of drunkenness, a small number when we consider how fearfully this vice prevailed in town at that time.

From all this we can see that the last years of Mr. Smith's pastorate was very discouraging. He retired from this field in 1799. He possessed qualities of mind and heart which made him a successful preacher and pastor in the various parishes he occupied. He was a diligent Bible student and published several books of sufficent merit to be commended by such men as Nathaniel Emmons, Erskine Mason and W. B. Sprague of Albany, N. Y.