Edward Cox Home

Edward Cox (1750-1852), a Maryland native, converted in 1773 under the preaching of Francis Asbury, one of the first bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. Shortly afterward, Cox moved westward to Virginia and the region that would later become eastern Tennessee. After spending two years there, he returned to Maryland to marry Sallie Meredith. The newlyweds began their six-hundred-mile journey to their frontier home the day after their wedding, traveling on horseback. They are believed to have been among the first Methodist settlers in the Holston region.

During the Revolutionary War, Edward served in the militia from 1775 to 1781. When he returned, the Cox household became a welcoming refuge for the Methodist itinerant ministers who traveled the frontier spreading the Methodist faith. Francis Asbury first visited the home in 1788 while traveling to Virginia, where he convened the first Methodist conference west of the Allegheny Mountains.