 The original building lasted for half a century.In the latter years of the Revolutionary War, Loyalist troops under the command of Hessian general Wilhelm von Knyphausen burned the church along with the surrounding town and the parsonage during the Battle of Connecticut Farms, an unsuccessful British attempt to retake Morristown.During the fighting, Hannah Caldwell, the wife of Continental Army chaplain James Caldwell, was shot dead at the parsonage.