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The Church of Christ at Corinth, Arkansas was established in 1850 in Pike
now Howard County. Its early history and the individuals and families
associated with its founding have been preserved in the writings of S.
Brooks Reese in his history of "Corinth and Its Kinfolk" completed in April
1931. He says, "The writer hardly knows how to begin ... I have been
requested by a number of people to write ... a history of the church and
the people that made it what is has been, and is yet. I will say ... that
the church has probably done more to make the people what they are yet,
than some may think."
The first organized church in Pike County was the Church of Christ at
Antioch now Delight in 1833. Elijah Kelley of Wolf Creek began to preach in
1826 following his own conversion and baptism in Alabama in 1824. His
father was a Baptist preacher and his mother influenced his reading the New
Testament and following its teachings. His brother William Kelley adhered
to the Baptist faith but later converted and became the first Pastor of
the Antioch Church in 1842 and also its first Elder. The families of these
two men and many of their neighbors were among the charter members.
In 1848 the Bethel Church was organized in Pike County and was one of the
oldest American Baptist Association churches in Arkansas. Russell Pierce
Baker in "Resetting The Old Landmarks" says, "It was first called Caddo
Valley Church. Later the name was changed to Pleasant Grove. In 1861 it
became Bethel Church. Its founding families came from (the) old Mount
Bethel Church" in Clark County, Arkansas.
S. Brooks Reese writes, "David D. Jones, Anthony Floyd, and Tyler Bacon
had joined in with the Campbell (movement) before they left Tennessee and
they got ... (a) preacher from over in the east side of the county to
preach for them. This ... brother was named Kelley and he organized a
church at old Antioch, now Delight, in 1833. So by 1850 several of the
Tennesseans had united with the first three mentioned ... (and) they
proceeded to organize the (third) church of Christ in the State of
Arkansas." (A church at Little Rock had been established in 1832). "They
had no church house or even a school house to meet in, and they met in
Tyler Bacon's dwelling house one mile northeast of the present church
site. How many years they worshipped there I cannot say, but not long.
David D. Jones, Anthony Floyd and Tyler Bacon were the first Elders and
held that position until after the Civil War."
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David Kelley 1999
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