1857 - 1928
J. G. Corley, one of the great preachers, who spent his life in the Bethel Association was born in 1857. When a young man with his father he moved to Dawson and there joined the Dawson Baptist Church. And the next month after his joining the church he was licensed to preach and then the following month was ordained as a Baptist Minister having been called as Pastor to serve the Sardis Baptist Church. He was ordained by the Dawson Baptist Church. His father, Rev. J. H. Corley, Rev. J. A. Ivey, and Rev. M. B. L. Binion formed the Presbytery. He married his first wife, Miss Fannie Sphynx, at the age of 19 years. Two children were born to this union, Vernon Corley and Annie Corley, who is now Mrs. W. D. Sammons. After the death of his first wife, he married Miss Nannie B. Kaigler of Cuthbert, on September 24, 1885.
In 1889 he came to the Colomokee Community in Early County together with Deacon Mack Poindexter of Friendship Church, Randolph County, and organized and constituted Colomokee Baptist Church. On the following year he moved with his family to the Colomokee Community in Early County, at which place he lived the remainder of his life, and preached at Colomokee Church continuously from 1889 to September 1927 with the exception of one or two years.
He served a great many other churches during the time of his residence at Colomokee, Mount Vernon, Rehoboth, Damascus, Carnegie, Sardis, Brooksville, Friendship, Mt. Hebron, Chickasawhatchee, Reynolds, Shiloh, Preston, Weston, Gaudy, Enon, Arlington, Providence, Mt. Ararat, Beulah and Bluff Springs in Alabama, Hilton, Cedar Springs and Pine View.
It was during Brother Corley's ministry of Colomokee that Brother A. L. Miller, now of Edison, and Moderator of the Bethel Association for twenty-five years joined the Colomokee Church. Here also Carl A. DeVane, now pastor of Alexandria, La. was baptized.
Brother Corley was one of the strongest preachers of the Bethel Association and during his ministry often baptized as many as thirty or forty converts in one church during the year. He was prompt, energetic and an unusual orator. He served principally country churches for long periods at a time and those churches almost without exception developed into strong churches and especially on the Baptist Doctrine. He had strong convictions as to the Ordinances of his Church and to the behaviour of its members. He passed at his home on the 9th day of May 1928 and was buried in the church yard of the church he constituted and pastored since 1885, Colomokee.
The following notes added by Debra Crosby
Georgia Death Index Name:
Jeptha Corley Death Date: 09 May 1928
County of Death: Early
Certificate: 12630-J
Buried Kolomoki Cemetery Early Co.
http://files.usgwarchives.org/ga/early/cemeteries/kolomoki.txt
1920 Federal Census Early Co. Ga Malitia Dist 1535 e. d. 73 sheet 3 a
45- Corley, J. G.
Jr. head
29 Ga. Ga. Ga.
Carrie Corday?
wife 27 Ga. Al. Ga.
46- Corley, J.
G.
head 66 Ga. Ga. Ga.
Nannie
B.
wife 54 Ga. SC. Ga.
Lucy
Belle dau
14 Ga. Ga. Ga.
Georgia Marriages Early Co.
SAMMONS, W. D. - CORLEY, ANNIE 21 Dec 1893
This file contributed by
Charlene Parker
<laurel43@bellsouth.net> Sep 2002
Tuesday, April 22, 2025