In his History of Irwin County (Atlanta, Foote & Davies, 1932), J. B. Clements writes: The Methodists must have been in Irwin County as early as the Baptists, if not earlier. He notes that the first known Methodist circuit rider in the area was John W. Yarborough, a young man just from the mountains and his first appointment was the Irwin Mission in Irwin County. This was in 1832. In 1866, another Methodist circuit rider noted he rode seventeen miles through Irwin County without seeing a single dwelling or a living thing save a deer leaping through the woods. Methodists were fairly sparse in Irwin County throughout most of the 19th-century. Unfortunately, Clements does not give any account of the history of the Ocilla Methodist Church in his work, though he does include a photograph of the building. It’s likely that it dates to the first decade of Ocilla’s incorporation, between 1897-1907.
