Wilkes County GaArchives Obituaries.....Colley, John Owens February 10, 1852
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Marshall Styles marshallstyles@yahoo.com December 24, 2007, 7:12 am

The Washington (GA) Gazette, 20 February 1852

“Departed this life at his residence in this county on Tuesday morning the 
instant after a short illness, John Owens Colley, age 31 years, 11 months and 
five days, leaving a widow with one child, and numerous relatives and friends 
to lament his loss. 

Seldom has the Arch Destroyer chosen for his victim a more shining mark, and 
still less seldom has the arrow of Death been pointed with so vast an amount 
of desolation and sorrow for the hearts of the living. The blow, too, gathered 
strength from the suddenness of its infliction; no premonition of protracted 
illness to warn of calamities to come; no matured and time reflection to nerve 
the heart and mind against the day of sorrow. In the midst of youth, vigor and 
usefulness, the hope and pride of friends, the silver cord was loosed, and a 
noble spirit fled forever. Truly the ways of Providence are mysterious and 
past finding out.

The subject of this humble tribute was well known to the writer, and he had, 
in a long and intimate friendship, every opportunity of learning the various 
traits that distinguished him as a citizen, and in the domestic relations of 
life. His general bearing was modest and unobtrusive, though exceedingly kind 
to all, and scrupulously regardful of the feelings  and rights of others. His 
intercourse with his more intimate friends was always amiable and marked by 
that playfulness and simplicity characteristic of warm and generous hearts. He 
was a just man free from all deception, and was governed in all his relations, 
cost what it might of interest or prejudice, by the high principle to do what 
was Right. These qualities admirably fit him for the home circle, and here it 
was that they shown brightest, and made him the idol of the household. As a 
son, he was faultless; as a brother, affectionate and kind; and as a husband 
and father, the joy and pride of his family. To them his untimely death is 
both sad and painful.

In regard to his religious sentiments, the writer had, perhaps, better 
opportunities for knowing him than most others, having been one of the few to 
whom he confided his private thoughts and feelings. Though not a member of any 
branch of the Christian Church, his influence was uniformly thrown on the side 
of morality and religion. In the confidential intercourse alluded to, the 
writer, with others, has received evidences that this resulted not only from 
the inculcations of pious parents and associations, but from a genuine, 
scriptural faith and obligations of Christianity. Reasons of a private nature, 
together with a distrust of his worthiness, a humility so often of Christian 
piety, induced him to postpone for a time at least, a public consecration of 
himself in the worship and services of the Savior. Forgetting that Christian 
perfection as set forth in the Divine Word, is an object to be sought for than 
attained, the high standard of Christian duty which he had erected in his own 
mind, deterred him from an open connection with the Church, while few were 
better prepared in heart to prosper and adorn its cause. In the midst of 
overwhelming grief for his earthy loss, his friends must find consolation in 
the hope that their loss is his “eternal gain,” and that in His own time, the 
ties thus rudely severed, shall again be united, never to be broken, in the 
mansions of the blest. Washington, Feb. 17th, 1852”
~~~~~


Additional Comments:
John Owens Colley, born 5 March 1820, Wilkes County, Georgia, son of Francis 
Colley and Frances Anne Carroll Owens (Colley), of Wilkes County. He married 
Sarah Elizabeth Talbot, daughter of James Creswell Talbot (son of Thomas 
Talbot and Elizabeth Creswell) and Sarah Ann Phillips. John Owens Colley and 
Sarah Elizabeth Talbot had two children, Sarah Frances Colley and Owens Colley 
(died 1851 as an infant). Transcription of the obituary was provided by Ellen 
Peniston Rafeedie.

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