Lexington County · Marker 32-28
Laurance Corley House
Lexington County Museum, Berly St. approx 300 ft. S of Columbia Ave., Lexington
Front inscription
This log house was built ca. 1771 by Laurance Corley (1742-1815), whose plantation of over 1700 acres occupied much of present-day Lexington. Corley later served in Capt. Gabriel Friday's militia company during the Revolution. The house stood on two previous locations near Twelve Mile Creek, approximately 1 mile east, and was moved here on part of the original tract in 1974, then restored by the Lexington Co. Museum.
Reverse inscription
Laurance Corley was the father of sixteen children, founding a prominent and well-known Lexington County family. His first wife Christena died in 1806, and he later married a widow, Barbara Derrick Drafts (1770-1858), later known as "Granny Corley." In 1820, five years after Corley's death, Mrs. Corley deeded two acres to the state for the establishment of a new county seat, which became the town of Lexington.