As we continue to move toward our nation’s semiquincentennial, I’m still focusing on elements of the Revolutionary War effort of attaining independence and the related contributions and connections of families of the Fork, the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers.
If you’re familiar with the Tuckahoe area of the Fork, then you know the Coker name. Marlin Coker’s block building with “Coker’s Used Cars” painted on it on Midway Road has been there all my life, and the newly opened River Islands Country Store and Grill in the old Midway School is another Coker establishment. If you haven’t eaten at the grill or perused their shelves of Amish goods, then you’re missing out. But I digress.
Records verified by the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) tell us that William Coker was born in 1742 in Virginia. Once the war ended, he and a couple of his brothers came here to Knox County. A 1792 survey shows that William Coker had 400 acres shaped like a horseshoe on the south bank of what is now known as Fort Loudon Lake (the Tennessee River, formerly known as the Holston). Alcoa Highway now crosses it. After having several children, William’s first wife died, and he remarried and had several more children. He died in Knox County in 1816.
Most of the early local Cokers lived in South Knox County. At least three of William’s sons and one daughter stayed in Knox County, while most others eventually moved elsewhere. Because his brothers and his sons had children with repeated family names, it’s difficult to know who belonged to whom, but some of their descendants ended up in Tuckahoe by the 1880s.
River Islands Country Store and Grill in the old Midway School
James Alex and Cordelia (Green) Coker had a daughter buried in Thorn Grove Cemetery in the Fork in 1889. Their son Noah Frank and his wife Virgie (Covington) were the parents of Marlin, who owned the car lot my family passed every time my parents took me and my siblings to visit my Loveday grandparents. The big, bold Coker name on the block building and the descendants’ new market and grill in the old Midway School make sure the Coker name and heritage isn’t forgotten in the Fork.
Jan Loveday Dickens is an educator, historian, and author of Forgotten in the Fork, a book about the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers, obtainable by emailing ForgottenInTheFork@gmail.com.
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I lived in Coker! When I had my son. It was beautiful!
Jan do you realize that BG Peters owned the Hancock grocery and Peters Mill (still a landmark) had a daughter (Leafy) who married a Coker. The Midway School property where the River Island Country Store and grocery is now located was donated by this family.
I do! I talked to Derek about that the other day, but thanks for making sure I knew!
My grandparents and Dad and siblings lived for a while on Coker Avenue in Knoxville. I wonder it that name traces to these Coker’s.