Trekking north from Hopkinton, NH, Moses Trussell made his first attempt to settle in New London in 1774. He built a shelter, cleared land, and planted corn the next spring. At the end of the summer, he returned to harvest his crop, already taken by bears and other animals. He left disappointed, served in the Revolutionary War, and did not return to New London until 1804.
Meanwhile, others came and stayed. By the time of its incorporation in June, 1779, New London was home to 16 families, residing on a small portion of the town’s 137 survey lots (of 150 acres each). The land was granted in 1773 by the Masonian Proprietors to Jonas Minot of Concord (MA) and a small group from the Londonderry (NH) area. They would attract settlers by giving them land and later profit by selling the remaining land, made more valuable by the new roads, mills, schools, and meeting-house constructed by the earlier settlers.
At the first town meeting on August 3, 1779, selectmen were chosen and the town government organized. The settlers built farms and roads and mills. By 1786 a school had been built. Their labor needed elsewhere, children attended school for just three months of the year.
In March, 1786, construction of a meeting-house and adjoining burying-ground was approved. A new town census tallied 219 inhabitants. Eight families had moved from Attleboro (MA), where they attended a Baptist church led by the Rev. Job Seamans. In 1787, voters called him “as a minister of the Gospel,” offering “three pounds in cash and thirty-seven pounds in labor and grain and other produce,” plus moving expenses. He accepted in March, 1788. Two years later, the 1790 census counted 311 residents.