Thomaston's Baptist Church was chartered in 1816, and the Episcopal Church, St. John Baptist, has been its neighbor throughout its existence. Together they set the tone for cooperation among the town's denominations. When the Baptist church's steeple burned in the 1990s, religious institutions across the area took collections to help rebuild the steeple and repair smoke and water damage. The Baptist Church's tall steeple could be seen from far offshore, and in the nineteenth century ships sailing up the St. Georges River used it to set their course for smooth sailing into Thomaston.