If you look closely at this old photograph of John Corbly Memorial Baptist Church you’ll see some of the changes the 20th century had already brought to Garard’s Fort by 1914 when this Baptist revival was snapped for posterity. Although the pre-Revolutionary garrison that would become a town had yet to lose its apostrophe – that would happen when road signs were assigned in the 1920s – horseless carriages had already arrived, seen here parked to the left of the church, with horses politely ignoring them on the right.
A stone monument dedicated in 1963 to the John Corbly family marks the spot in Garards Fort Cemetery where the log meeting house once stood. A second log Goshen Church was built behind the present church that sits around the bend from the cemetery. It was replaced in 1843 by a brick building that was rebuilt in 1868 and remodeled in 1902 to include the beautiful façade you see today.
The church changed its name to John Corbly Memorial Baptist Church in 1907 in honor of the firebrand preacher who brought the Baptist faith to the Muddy Creek and Whitely Creek settlements in the late 1760s. When the first meetinghouse was built in April 1771, Corbly farmed land nearby and preached there on Sunday when he wasn’t ministering at Muddy Creek – now Carmichaels.
The American Revolution was still on and displaced tribal fighters were raiding frontier settlements when Reverend Corbly and his family were ambushed on their way to church on May 10, 1782. He and oldest son John survived but second wife Elizabeth and three younger children were scalped and killed that day. Two years later Corbly would marry Nancy Lynn, father eight more children and continue to preach for free until his congregation grew large enough to pay him with bushels of wheat, corn and rye – and the occasional shilling or pence.
Corbly’s full throated support of the “Liberty and no excise!” Whisky Rebellion of 1791 was understandable – President Washington had just passed America’s first tax to help pay for the Revolution. The caveat – it could only be paid in Federal dollars.
Cash strapped farmers with little or no access to a market economy beyond bartering, were unwilling or unable to pay the tax. Tensions grew, tax collectors were tarred and feathered – or worse – and farmers became militiamen once more. It was an open, but short-lived rebellion against the “Federalists.”
Corbly’s fire and brimstone words made him a ringleader, and when Federal troops arrived in 1794 to quell a revolution that had quietly evaporated, he and 150 other “seditionists” were rounded up and marched to Philadelphia to stand trial. These rebel settlers were tried, convicted, then pardoned by President Washington in a bid to unify a new nation. According to the plaque that stands at the entrance to Garards Fort Cemetery, after returning home ”Rev. John Corbly (1833-1803) retired here and remained active in the ministry.”
Reverend Corbly preached at Goshen Church until 1802 and in his lifetime, helped “plant” more than 30 Baptist churches in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia – which would become West Virginia in 1863 during the Civil War.
