Early Union County Settler Adam Corn Noted as a Minister

He was likely referred to as “Elder” Corn among those who knew him. His name was Adam Corn, an ordained Baptist minister, who was living with his family in Union County Georgia by the time of the 1840 census. Extant family stories about this pioneer state that he moved here from North Carolina by 1839. In the 1839 census, his household had four males and four females. By age distribution, one male was five to ten, one was ten to fifteen, one twenty to thirty, and one fifty to sixty; females were two aged fifteen to twenty, one thirty to forty, and one fifty to sixty. The elder two listed in the household would likely have been Rev. Adam Corn and his wife, Hannah Heatherly Corn. Although the last name of another family living in Union at the time of the 1840 census was spelled Carne, it was likely intended to be Corn, the eldest son of Rev. Adam Corn. In that household were John Carne (Corn) who was between thirty and forty, his wife, and one child, a female under five.

As we shall see, this early Baptist minister was what we call today a church planter, for everywhere he went, including Union and Towns Counties in North Georgia, he started new churches. He was aided in this work (especially in the North Carolina area) by two more noted ministers of that early settlements era, the Rev. Humphrey Posey and the Rev. Stephen Smith. Bonded together in their work with frontier settlements and mission work with the Cherokee Indians, these men contributed significantly to early church establishment and mission work in Virginia, North and South Carolina and North Georgia.

Adam Corn was born May 2, 1783 in Albemarle County, Virginia, the son of John Peter and Elizabeth Parr Corn. His father was a Revolutionary War soldier. His grandparents were Matthew and Millie Corn and John and Miriam Parr, all of Henry County, Virginia. When Adam was a young lad of about eleven, his family moved from Virginia to Surrey County, North Carolina, then on to Wilkes County where so many who migrated from Union County had settled.

Adam Corn met Hannah Heatherly in Buncombe County, North Carolina. Her parents had migrated there from the old Pendleton District in South Carolina. Adam and Hannah were living near her parents, the John Heatherlys, in the 1810 census of Buncombe County. Adam was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1812 by the Mud Creek Baptist Church in Henderson, North Carolina. Thus began his career as a minister, church organizer and itinerant preacher and pastor. We trace several moves over the next years as he assisted the Rev. Humphrey Posey of the Board of Domestic Missions and the Rev. Stephen White, sometimes called a “hardshell Baptist preacher” to organize churches. “Hardshell” often referred to an anti-missions position of doctrine. Since Corn and Posey were obviously quite missions-minded, one wonders how the three then cooperated. Perhaps the demarcations in beliefs were not as divisive in those early years and people welcomed ordained itinerant preachers to deliver sermons, perform funerals and weddings, and baptize converts at the locations of scattered churches.

We trace Adam Corn’s ministry to the Cullowhee District in Jackson County, North Carolina where their eldest son, John, was born in 1813, and where he assisted with missions to the Indians and in organizing the Cullowhee Baptist Church. He was also an organizer of the Tuckaseegee Baptist Association at Cullowhee and presided at the meeting. He was present and led in organizing the Waynesville Baptist Church in 1823. He, the Rev. Stephen White and the Rev. Humphrey Posey organized the Cowee Baptist Church on March 15, 1828, and Rev. Posey served as its first pastor. Other churches he and the Rev. Humphrey Posey founded were the Locust Field Baptist Church in Canton (now First Baptist of Canton, NC), Mt. Zion Baptist Church at the Arneechee Ford of the Oconaluftee River, as well as the Luftee Baptist Church, the latter in 1836.

Then when Indian lands opened up in Union County, Georgia, Elder Adam Corn moved his family there about 1839. Within that area Rev. Corn led in organizing Macedonia Baptist Church which is south of present-day Hiawassee in Towns County, Brasstown Baptist Church, and Old Union Baptist Church in Young Harris. Towns County was formed from Union in 1856. Without moving, Rev. Adam Corn became a resident of the new county. Their farm was in the Bell Creek Community. He continued active in the ministry for all of his long life. Records show that he baptized his two older sons, John and Alfred, in the Hiawassee River in 1841 and they became members of the Macedonia Baptist Church their father had helped to organize. Alfred himself became a noted minister. Adam’s son John Corn served as the first moderator of the Hiawassee Baptist Association in 1849.

The graves of Rev. Adam Corn and his wife Hannah Heatherly Corn are in the Lower Bell Creek Baptist Church Cemetery. She died February 8, 1859 and he died September 12, 1871, at age 88. He had served as a minister for sixty years.

c2012 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published March 15, 2012 online with permission of the author at the GaGenWebProject. All rights reserved.

The Life and Times of a Circuit-Riding Preacher: The Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr. (Part 1)

It has been said of the Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr. (2/2/1814-8/23/1900), mountain preacher of the nineteenth century, that “few, if any, men have done more to extend the influence of the Gospel in North Georgia or have been the means of leading greater numbers to the Cross.” [in Hearthstones of Home, p. 107].

So far as opportunities went, his were accepted under the most stringent of circumstances and with a great deal of personal duress. He was a cripple and used a crutch to get about. What caused this disability is unknown to this writer.

He was born in Spartanburg County, SC on February 2, 1814. Only six years after his birth, in 1820, his father, died. His mother was the former Elizabeth Pinson, the second wife of Elisha Hedden, Sr. They had eight children. Seven had been born to his first wife. Elisha, Jr. was next to the youngest of his full siblings who were, in order of birth: George, Joel, Garet, Mariah, Cate, Doshe, Elisha, Jr., and Jeffrey.

Elisha Hedden, Sr. had served for seven years in the Revolutionary War, and was wounded several times. He received land grants for his service and settled on the Tyger River in Spartanburg, County, SC where he engaged in farming. His will was tied up in legal complications for 19 years after his death, and was never settled satisfactorily. Perhaps that is why, when his widow Elizabeth married again on October 19, 1821 to William Visage, she had him draw up a legal bond in Pendleton District, SC which assured that $1,000 be set aside for her two minor children and that he “shall carefully and handsomely bring up Elisha Headin, seven years old next February, and Jeffrey Headin, five years old, during their minority and nonage with necessary meat, drink, washing, lodging, apparel, and learning, according to their degree, and the said William Visage shall during the time be guardian and tutor unto the said Elisha and Jeffrey Headin...Defend them from hurt of body, loss of goods and lands, so far as in his power lieth.” [Hearthstones..., p. 106]. The legal bond further stipulated that the two Hedden boys duly receive whatever property was due them when they should come of age.

That legal action on the part of their mother with her new husband, William Visage, apparently was honored. The Visage/Hedden family moved to Rabun County, Georgia in 1823, as did Elizabeth Visage’s parents, Joseph and Margery Pinson. There the daughter, Mariah, married Joseph Eller. Ten years later they moved over the mountain to the Upper Hightower section of Old Union County in the area that became Towns County in 1856. There Elisha Hedden, Jr.’s step-father opened the Visage post office and became its postmaster. The boys received their early education in country schools in these North Georgia locations.

While they were still young lads, Elisha, Jr. and Jeffrey Hedden came in contact with a noted minister and missionary to the Cherokee Indians, the Rev. Humphrey Posey. It is possible that they heard him preach before they moved out of South Carolina, for he taught school and started churches there. Appointed by the Home Mission Board to minister to the Indians at Valley Town in the Murphy, NC area, Rev. Posey had begun a mission school for Indians there that lasted until the Removal on the Trail of Tears. Rev. Posey went on preaching tours into Georgia, western North Carolina, and South Carolina. He was instrumental in starting many Baptist churches in the area. He also was active in promoting the Mercer Institute (now Mercer University) organized in Penfield, Georgia in 1833. When the Rev. Posey spoke, people took notice. Colonel A. T. Davidson, writing of him, stated: “He was a man greatly endowed by nature to be a leader, of great physical force, singularly marked with a fine profile, a fine voice and manner, singularly simple and eloquent.” [quoted in Whitaker, Bruce, “Reverend Humphrey Posey” in the Fairview, NC Town Crier.]

Elisha, Jr., in his future preaching career, would emulate in his own sermon delivery style the bold characteristics of the Rev. Humphrey Posey.

Keeping his pre-marital contract to give the Hedden boys “the best education possible,” William Visage and their mother, Elizabeth Pinson Hedden Visage, sent Elisha, Jr. and Jeffery Hedden to middle Georgia to begin their advanced educational studies at Mercer Manual Labor School at Penfield. Unfortunately, Jeffrey, who was born in 1816, died while a student at Penfield in the spring of 1838. Elisha, Jr. finished his course of study there and was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1839.

[Next: Continuing the life and work of the Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr.]

(Sources: Information for this article was derived from these sources: Hearthstones of Home: Foundations of Towns County, Georgia, Volume I, 1983. Pp. 106-108. The Fairview Town Crier, Fairview, NC, “Reverend Humphrey Posey,” Nov. 99. www.fairviewtowncrier.com.Various church and associational documents of Union, Towns and Fannin Counties, Georgia, and Viewpoints, a publication of the Georgia Baptist Historical Commission.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 15, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.