DAVID JARRELL KELLEY MADDOX

DAVID JARRELL KELLEY MADDOX was the Seventeenth Pastor of the Green River Church. He served in the office from January, 1899, to and including May, 1902 - a period of three years and five months - forty-one months. In that time he saw the Church membership, which had been reduced drastically by roll revision from 222 to 138 in 1896, climb back to 161 in 1901, as a great revival in 1900 added 29 by baptism alone. The Church paid him $100.00 per year for his labors in their midst. 

Brother Maddox was born near the village of Rockport, Ohio County, Kentucky, on May 10th, 1836; and died in the same County, on February 21, 1904. His body was interred in the family Cemetery near West Providence Baptist Church, Ohio County, Kentucky, after four Baptist Ministers had taken an active part in conducting his funeral at the Church. He was the son of John Maddox, Jr., a Licensed Minister, but never an ordained one. His father was a successful revivalist for years. His mother was Amelia B. (Render) Maddox, the daughter of Robert Render and Charlotte (Barnes) Render. He bore the name well of one of the most famous of the pioneer Baptist Ministers of the Green River Country - David Jarrell Kelley (1791-1831) - who was a faithful Minister of the Gospel of Christ himself. He was the eighth child of ten born to his parents, and in his early years had only the educational advantages afforded by his native County; but, by close application, labored in the day and studying at night, and preaching on the Lord's Day, he acquired a large amount of information on ecclesiastical and literary subjects. 

He was married in March, 1856, to Miss Sallie A. Tichenor, the daughter of Collier and Ann Tichenor. To this union twelve children were born. Two of them, Edgar Dowden Maddox and Albert L. Maddox, became useful Baptist Ministers. His first died about 1900. In November, 1902, he married Lou Tichenor, who ministered tenderly to him until his death. At the age of ten, in 1846, Brother Maddox was converted and baptized into the fellowship of the Walton's Creek Church by the writer's maternal great-grandfather - Alfred Taylor - the Pastor. The meeting was conducted in his father's home, and he was among sixteen who were baptized at that time. This was the beginning of the work which later grew into West Providence Church, in July, 1853, the home of the Maddox preachers for four generations. 

He was licensed by the West Providence Church in June, 1859, and ordained on May 7th, 1860, by a Council or Presbytery composed of Baptist Ministers Alfred Taylor and J. F. Austin. In his ministry of forty-four years, he served sixteen Churches. They were: Rochester in Butler County; West Providence, Pond Run, Mt. Carmel, Beaver Dam, Woodward's Valley, West Point, Green River, Cool Spring and Mt. Zion, in Ohio County; Paradise, Central City and Drakesboro, in Muhlenberg County; Buck Creek and Livermore, in McLean County; and South Hampton, in Daviess County. Brother Maddox took a deep interest in Denominational Affairs at large, attending often the general meetings. For thirteen years he served as the Moderator of the Gasper River Association. He assisted in organizing a number of Churches, and in ordaining a number of Baptist Ministers, of which nine had been baptized by him. The work of the Denomination was greatly helped by his life and ministry. 

A Sesquicentennial History of the Green River Missionary Baptist Church 1836 - 1986, Written and Compiled by Wendell Holmes Rone, Sr., For the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Church, 1987.