MUSCOGEE COUNTY, GA - BIOS  Carey C. Willis

Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb
Archives by: Barbara Winge  barbarawinge@yahoo.com

Table of Contents page: 
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee.htm
Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm
Barbara Winge

Carey C. Willis One of the most unassuming of men; one of
the most gentle, genial and loveable of friends and
companions; most gentlemanly, honorable and high-toned in
all the relations of life; and perculiarly tender,
conscientious and zealous as a Christian, Rev. Carey C.
Willis is beloved and admired by a wide circle of friends
and acquaintances. He is one of the few men whose names
are never used lightly by gossiping lips.

The eldest son of Dempsey and Margaret Willis, he was
born in Baldwin county, Georgia, March 24th, 1809. His
mother's name before her marriage was Margaret Curry.
Both parents were Baptists, and consistent members of the
church. Not wealthy, yet possessing enough of this
world's goods to live in ease and comfort, they
considered it a sacred duty to rear their children under
religious influences. They were blessed with ten
children, five sons and five daughters, all of whom were
trained to regard it as honorable to earn their bread by
the sweat of their brows; and young Carey was remarkable
for the energy and perseverance he manifested on the
farm. Indeed, these characteristics have marked his
course through life, and proved important elements in
securing the success to which he attained. Educational
advantages were meagre in Georgia in his early life, and
therefore he did not enjoy the advantages of a classical
education. His defects of education he however sought to
remedy, as far as possible, by self-application after his
entrance on the ministry. Having moved to Muscogee county
in 1828, he there professed conversion and united with
the Bethel church, ten miles from Columbus in 1829, when
twenty years of age. He was baptized by Rev. Z. H.
Gordon, a pious and good man, who is still living in
Alabama. After the lapse of half a century, Mr. Willis
still retains his membership in the church with which he
first became connected. His pious conversation and godly
walk induced his church to set him apart to the office of
deacon, March 31st, 1836. The presbytery was composed of
Rev. George Granberry, Rev. G. B. Waldrup, and Rev.
Anderson Smith, all of whom now slumber in the grave.

Called first to serve the Liberty church as pastor, Mr.
Willis began at once a long life of active and most
useful ministerial service, which can be but briefly
hinted at. His connection with Liberty church continued
six years, and he baptized many into her fellowship; with
Harmony church, in Cusseta, Chattahoochee county, he was
connected as pastor ten years, beginning with 1840, and
from a membership of thirteen only, it became, under his
care, one of the strongest churches in the Columbus
Association. The Bethel church has been greatly blessed
by his labors, in a long pastorate of forty years, which
still continues. very many have been received into its
membership and baptized by him, among them fifteen of his
own children. Under his watch-care this church became a
model, and one of the most efficient churches in the
Columbus Association. Its house of worship far surpasses
in excellence most country churches, but what is more
remarkable, its people and pastor have ever been in such
harmony that an unpleasant division on any subject has
never occurred among them.

For seventeen years, Mr. Willis served the Bethesda
church, in Harris county, and is still pastor of the Mt.
Zion church, in Muscogee county, although he began to
preach for it twenty-four years ago; and his labors have
been greatly blessed. The Rehoboth church, in Harris
county; the Beulah church, in Stewart county, and several
other churches, in both Georgia and Alabama, have enjoyed
the benefits of his ministrations, and wherever he has
labored, the people "rise up and call him blessed."

Few men can look back on a long ministerial life with so
much gratification as the subject of this sketch. yet it
is doubtless true that he regards himself as merely an
humble, instrument in the hands of Providence. As a
pastor, he has always been tender, kind and loving, yet
firm in his convictions of duty, truth and right. His
moral influence for good over an extensive section is
very great, because of the high esteem in which he is
held by all classes of society. As a supporter of the
Sunday-school and mission cause, he is noted. The region
in which he has labored was, in part, formerly strongly
anti-missionary in sentiment; but so potent have been his
influence that anti-mission sentiments have given way,
and a strong missionary spirit, prevails; indeed, the
churches of the Columbus Association are conspicuous for
their liberality to the mission cause...

Mr. Willis has married twice. His first wife, whom he
married October 15th, 1829, was Miss Martha A. Stallings.
She died in December, 1845, leaving eight small children.
He afterwards married Mrs. Mary T. Huff, who still lives
to bless his declining years, and who has borne him ten
children, three of whom have "gone on before."

Mr. Willis lives in the Bethel neighborhood, ten miles
east of Columbus, in Muscogee County, in which
neighborhood he has resided for fifty years- a period
long enough to try a man; and those long years have been
tried and proved him...

Ref: The Christian Index, HISTORY OF THE BAPTIST
DENOMINATION IN GEORGIA WITH BIOGRAPHICAL COMPENDIUM,
1881, Jas. P. Harrison & Co., Atlanta, Ga., pp. 590-592.