Reverend Cordley was born September 6, 1829, and came to Lawrence, Kansas in 1857. As a youth, he had an unfortunate childhood accident when he was ten years old. He was trying to free a stuck ox, when he slipped in the mud and lost an eye; but the young Cordley was not about to let that slow him down.

When he began ministering to the Plymouth Congregational Church, in 1857, he had but twenty members in his congregation. He soon developed a reputation for his beautifully worded, and mercifully short (twenty minute) sermons. Some 30 years later, he reported that in 1858 his family harbored a woman named Lizzy, as a participant in "underground railroad" activites in Larence. When he left after eighteen years as pastor in of Plymouth, the congregation of the church had swelled to over 400. Part of this was due to the new Plmouth Congregational Church building, erected in 1870 at a cost of $45,000.

Rev. Cordley also narrowly survived Quantrill's raid in 1863 with his wife and daughter, but did have his house burned down. Rev. Cordley also served on the Lawrence School Board for six years.