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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Cocke County, Tennessee.
Official Website
Before the arrival of European settlers, the area that is now Cocke County was inhabited by the Cherokee. The first recorded European settlement in the county was in 1783 when land near the fork of the French Broad and the Pigeon Rivers was cleared and cultivated. The earliest European settlers were primarily Scots-Irish, Dutch, and Germans who came to the area over the mountains from the Carolinas or through Virginia from Pennsylvania and other northern states.
The county was established by an Act of the Tennessee General Assembly on October 9, 1797, from a part of Jefferson County, Tennessee. It was named after William Cocke, one of the state's first Senators. Located within the Appalachian and Great Smoky Mountains, it had difficult conditions for early settlers.
Like many East Tennessee counties, settled by yeomen farmers who owned few if any slaves, Cocke County was largely pro-Union on the eve of the Civil War. In Tennessee's Ordinance of Secession referendum on June 8, 1861, the county's residents voted 1,185 to 518 against secession.
Adjacent Counties
- Hamblen County
- Greene County
- Madison County, North Carolina
- Haywood County, North Carolina
- Sevier County
- Jefferson County
Cities, Towns & Communities
- Allen Grove
- Baltimore
- Boomer
- Briar Thicket
- Bridgeport
- Bybee
- Cosby
- Del Rio
- Hartford
- Midway
- Newport (County Seat)
- Parrottsville
- Reidtown (part)
- Tom Town
- Wasp
Links
Appalachian Trail (part)
Cherokee National Forest (part)
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (part)
