Revolutionary War Hero Becomes Ordained Clergy

August 2, 1786.  Stephen Gano was ordained into the ministry by his father, John and several other pastors in the Gold Street Baptist Church in New York City.  A medical doctor by profession, he had been captured at sea in the Revolutionary War, escaped from Turk’s Island where the British left him and 34 others, recaptured and repatriated in a prisoner exchange.  After his ordination he served at the First Baptist Church in Providence, RI where he served until his death in 1828.  He increased the membership of the church from 165 to 647.  ABHS has many articles on the life of Stephen Gano and several books on the Gano family.