Jesse Holland Center was born May 20, 1789, the third child of Abner and Ellender Pruitt Center, before they moved from Lincoln County (the part now known as Gaston County) in North Carolina to the Dark Corner area.

Abner was the first Center (he spelled it with an S) that came to live in South Carolina about 1787. He not only loved the mountains of the northeastern corner of newly designated Greenville County, but he purchased 200 acres on the very top of Glassy Mountain from the State of South Carolina, for 20 pounds sterling ($20).

There was a huge pile of rocks on the property that was so large that the man who surveyed the tract included it in the official metes and bounds description in the deed. Over 200 years later, Anne K. McCuen, a Center descendant, used the deed description, “including a pile of rocks,” as the title of her massively-researched book on the Dark Corner.

Abner and Ellender Center built a house on top of the mountain and lived in it for five years before selling it to Joshua Gosnell and buying property at the foot of the mountain on land that lay west of the present-day Glassy Mountain Baptist Church. Over the next few years, he bought additional tracts of land in the area.

A very literate man, Abner Center taught school for his neighbors’ children for small pay at his own school house on his property on the headwaters of Middle Tyger River.

By 1800, Abner and Ellender Center had become members of a strict, Bible-believing Head of Tyger Baptist Church. Abner was a deacon and leader of church activity and outreach.

In 1832, their son, Jesse Holland, who had attended services with the family at Head of Tyger for many years, was not only converted to Christianity but felt a call to ministry was in his future.

Two years later, he and a good friend, Jefferson Barton, son of David and Nancy Barrett Barton, were both ordained as preachers by the church. Three well-known Baptist ministers—William King, William Hannon and Isaac Lemmons—conducted the ordination service.

Reverend Jesse Holland Center was instrumental in the founding, and became the pastor, of Glassy Mountain Baptist Church at the foot of the mountain.

He became known as Elder Jesse Holland Center to area residents. Whenever he preached revival services, whether at Glassy Mountain or other area churches, such as Holly Springs Baptist in Spartanburg County or North Fork Baptist on the old State Road, high numbers of folks joined the respective churches.

He served as Glassy Mountain Baptist pastor until his death in 1855.

His obituary in The Patriot and Mountaineer newspaper was entitled, Light from Darkness. The newspaper reminded readers that a great portion of the mountain area he served was known for many years as Dark Corner.

Reverend John G. Landrum, the most renowned minister in the upstate area, preached Elder Jesse Holland Center’s funeral, which was attended by more than two thousand people.

Jesse Holland Center, Junior, who was born when Elder Jesse became pastor of Glassy Mountain Baptist and who had been ordained to the ministry at age 22, became the new pastor upon his father’s death.

Jesse, Junior, was considered to be a young man of “more than ordinary intellect, possessing a warm and generous heart, benevolent and deeply pious.” The congregation anticipated a brilliant and useful career for him, and some felt that he possessed even greater preaching talent than his father.

He used his considerable inheritance of property for the good of his fellow-men. He became known for opening his crib to literally feed the hungry around him.

Reverend Jesse Holland Center, Junior, served as Glassy Mountain Baptist pastor only two short years. He and his infant daughter became ill. The infant died about six hours before her father died. They were buried together in the church cemetery.

His wife, the former Lydia Ann Dill, who was still only seventeen years of age at the time of her husband’s death, became childless and a widow. She later married O’Harrow Barton and had a daughter, Emma.