Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early ... and the University of North Carolina Press)

by Douglas L. Winiarski

Together, the earthquake and Connecticut Valley awakenings marked an important transitional moment in the history of New England Congregationalism. In both cases, churches in towns such as Haverhill and Suffield admitted exceptionally large cohorts of new communicants—between ten and twenty times the annual average (Chart 1). But some evidence suggests that New Englanders had begun to think about the “wonderful work of God” in regionally specific ways.