cocke
county,
tennessee
 French Broad River at Del Rio, TN (photo courtesy of Brian Stansberry, Wikipedia Commons)  Cocke County is located in East Tennessee, one of the state’s three “Grand Divisions.” Cocke County was formed in 1797 from part of Jefferson County. It is bordered by the following counties: Greene, Hamblen, Jefferson, Sevier, and Haywood Co., NC and Madison Co., NC. Newport is the county seat. |
From Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, 1853, regarding the county's founder:
"Cocke county was named for Gen. William Cocke, a native of Virginia, and an emigrant to Holston. He has been repeatedly mentioned as having participated in the military, civil, legislative and Judiciary services of Virginia, North-Carolina, Franklin and Tennessee, where he was known as an efficient and zealous officer, from his debut at Long Island, to his seat in the United States Senate, which he held for twelve years. He will be seen, thereafter, as one of the Circuit Judges for Tennessee. A member of her Legislature at the commencement of the Creek war in September, 1813, after assisting to pass an act to authorize an augmentation of the forces to march against the Creeks, and to protect the defenseless settlers in the most exposed part of the Mississippi Territory, and repel invasion, he, at the rise of the Legislature, though above sixty years of age, and before visiting his home in East Tennessee, volunteered his service as a private in that war, and acted therein most bravely and usefully. He was afterwards appointed United States Agent to the Chickasaws. He afterwards settled in Mississippi, and represented his county in its legislature. In private life, he was most hospitable and benevolent."
ANNOUNCEMENTS!
QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR ANCESTORS? Please do a search from the box below to locate surnames you are interested in throughout the documents on our site. Other helpful resources are found listed below in the Queries, Lists and Message Boards section of this page, and the link there to others researching particular surnames. And be sure to check the Stokely Memorial Library pages here for files they may have on your families of interest and their research assistance. WEBSITE HOSTS ARE NOT ABLE TO ASSIST WITH RESEARCH, but we hope these suggestions can help you on your searching. And as always, we welcome your contributions.
****NEW!!****
October 2015 - Please visit our Civil War Ancestors listing page to link to eighteen new pension abstracts for Cocke County families. We have also grown our listing of pre-1876 county marriages considerably. Special thanks as always are due to Bruce Price for many hours tracking the above and even more Chancery Court data and sharing this with us. He has also contributed two listings for early county inmates and delayed South Carolina birth certificate filings. In addition we now have microfilm transcription images of the Slate Creek Baptist Church minutes as listed on our Records page under "Churches". We appreciate the generosity of all who have submitted their work to be shared more widely.
For the convenience of our site visitors, contributions to our record and family surname/histories will now show their submission dates. Undated items are either original files, very early contributions or outside links. We welcome any suggestions for improving your visit to Cocke County TNGenWeb, and your contributions are always appreciated.
ALWAYS NEWS: The United States Reference Unit at the Family History Library has launched a research guide for Cocke County, Tennessee in the new FamilySearch Wiki format. Anyone who wishes to can register and add material or make changes.
Leslie Husky Cozart of Friends of the Stokely Memorial Library informs us that Duay O’Neal has finished a compilation of Cocke County Cemeteries, two big volumes. They are available through the Library. See the library's page for details.
Carole Thomason, the Hamblen Co. TNGenWeb coordinator, is a descendant of William Cocke. Please visit the Cocke page she has created to learn more about William Cocke, his contributions to Tennessee history, and the family line.
We are in need of documents collected from outside Cocke County pertaining to the area before the 1879 courthouse fire which destroyed all county records.
On Dec 30, 1876, a fire destroyed the Cocke County courthouse, taking with it all the records. (All except old deed book #17, which a lawyer had taken home to work on a case.) With those records went much of the information that we researchers need to piece together our family trees.
But not all the information is lost. In addition to old deed book #17, there were records that did not belong to the county that survive. These include church records, military records, state records, and even records in other counties and state that refer to Cocke County.
The purpose of this web site is to serve as a central repository for information from all sources about Cocke County and its people from before the courthouse fire. If you have information to contribute, please submit it to the site co-hosts with as much data as possible, including the document's date, names involved, and a brief abstract. This will help other researchers find their Cocke County roots “BEFORE THE FIRE”.
If you would like credit and are willing to share other data you might have concerning Cocke County, please submit your name, email address, and the type of data you have to:
| COCKE COUNTY HISTORY | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Goodspeed’s
History of Cocke County |
Goodspeed’s
History of Cocke County Biographies |
Cocke
County History, Topography and Migrations Route |
|
Ramsey's
Annals of Tennessee Index and Appendix |
Cocke
County Museum |
1821 Tennessee Map |
|
Cocke County Connections Old Newspaper Articles A Blog by Phillip Walker |
The
McGinty Store Ledger |
Early Cocke County Officials |
| National Register of Historical
Places Cocke County |
The Lost State of Franklin History Petition |
History of Cocke County from Chamber of Commerce online |
| American
Local History Network |
American
History and Genealogy Project |
Tennessee
Special History Projects |
| Smokey
Mountain Historical Society |
Cocke
Co. History & Genealogy TSLA Fact Sheet |
East
Tennessee Historical Society |
| WPA
Guide to TN History |
Tennessee General Assembly, 1799-1859 Index of names Petition abstracts |
East
Tennessee Roots Newsletter |
|
COCKE
COUNTY RECORDS Includes data collected before the 1876 courthouse fire |
|
FAMILY
HISTORIES Cocke County Families Submit yours! |
| GENERAL LINKS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
TN
State Webring Other TN Counties |
US Gen Web | US Gen Net |
Cocke
County Chamber of Commerce |
| Joining TNGenNet |
Tennessee
Genealogical Society |
Cyndi's List for Cocke County and TN |
Cocke County Dept. of Tourism |
|
TNGenWeb Records Repository |
USGenWeb
Archives Digital Library |
Stokely
Memorial Library Research and contact information including Surname Files Index |
Sevier
County History Center Includes old Cocke County records |
|
Newport,
TN at Wikipedia |
Tennessee State Library and Archives |
Southern
Folk History and Genealogy |
Cocke
County Images at Wikipedia Commons |
Family Search Research Guide for Cocke County - FamilySearch.org |
|||
| QUERIES, LISTS AND MESSAGE BOARDS | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Cocke
County Query Board REQUIRES FREE REGISTRATION |
Cocke County Mailing List |
Cocke
Message Board Genforum |
|
Lookup
and
Research Help |
Rootsweb Mailing lists | |
|
Cocke County Queries 1996 to 2000 Indexed by dates and names |
Individuals
researching Cocke County Surnames A to L M to Z |
Join TNGenWeb on Facebook |
Thanks for dropping by and come back soon!
All Rights Reserved. The information contained within this web site may be used by individual researchers, libraries and genealogical societies, however, commercial or for-profit use of this information is strictly prohibited without prior permission. If copied, this copyright notice must appear with the information. The copyright of the actual information, documents or images contained here is held by the submitter.
This site last updated on January 27, 2022.
