Category Archives: Darien GA

McIntosh County has a potentially important claim to fame in Catholic and North American history. Scholars suggest that the first Mass on the mainland of the New World was likely celebrated by a Dominican priest accompanying the colonist Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon on the shores of Sapelo Sound, in 1526. Of equal historical interest, a group of five Spanish Franciscan missionaries attached to Father Pedro de Corpa’s Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Mission (near present-day Darien) were killed by Guale Indians between 13-15 September 1597, and are now being considered for canonization. They are collectively known as the Georgia Martyrs. They were: Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodriguez, Miguel de Anon, Atonio de Badajoz, and Francisco de Verascola. A sixth missionary, Francisco de Avila, escaped the fate of his companions.

http://www.paulthigpen.com/georgiamartyrs/index.html

The oldest Presbyterian congregation in Georgia, the Darien church was founded in Jaunary 1736 by settlers from Inverness, Scotland. The first recorded building, constructed in 1820 on the present location of the First African Baptist Church, was burned by Union troops in 1863. A wood frame structure was erected on the present site, historically known as Bayard Square , in 1876, but accidentally burned in 1899.

http://www.firstpresbyterianofdarien.org/history.html