George M. Darley 1847 - 1917

A library transcription of his 1899 title page calls him the Rev. George M. Darley, D.D., and lists him as George Marshall Darley, 1847 to 1917. It says he had preached in Colorado for more than twenty-two years when the book appeared, served as pastor of the Presbyterian church at Del Norte, and was president of the Presbyterian College of the Southwest. He dedicated the memoir to his wife, Emma Jean Darley.

In Lake City, the town's own history page credits him with organizing the Presbyterian congregation and dedicating its church building on November 19, 1876. It also says he organized the Miners Library Association in August 1877 to support his temperance efforts. Our catalogue description adds that he had been a carpenter before ordination and built the church and its manse himself.

Darley's one book here is about mission work in a mining boom. It follows the 1876 move into the San Juans, the founding of a church in Lake City, and the practical side of ministry on the frontier: building with your own hands, living in a camp town and being the first of anything. Readers interested in church history, Lake City or early Western Slope settlement will find those threads together in a single first-person account.

The subjects this author is catalogued under. Open Library record.