1. LEGACY OF THE DESCENDANTS OF FRANKLIN COXE

2. St. Francis is an Episcopal Church today, but it was originally built by the Coxe family as a private burial chapel.

3. Directly behind the church are the grave sites of the family members dating back to the early 1800’s. Tombstones date from the earliest members of the family to live in Rutherford County to current times.

4. Franklin Coxe was born in 1839. He moved here from Pennsylvania to manage the “Speculation Land.”

5. Franklin married Mary Mills, who was a local girl. Her family built what is now known as Green River Plantation.

6. Mary and Frank Coxe’s son, Francis Sidney would be influential in developing the railroads of western North Carolina and Asheville and the tourism industry.

7. We are interested in the sisters of Francis Coxe. They were Daisy and Maude.

8. Now even though the ladies were born in Pennsylvania,they spent most of their lives at Coxe Plantation in Rutherford County, NC. It is now known as Green River Plantation. http://www.green-river.net/History.html

9. Daisy married a Mr. Wright from Pennsylvania and spent much of her life there. When she became a widow, however, she returned to North Carolina. http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/coxef/jpegs/coxe009.jpg DAISY COXE WRIGHT

10. Maude never married or left Rutherford County.

11. The interesting fact about these two ladies, is that they could not stand for the other one to outdo them. They started an ongoing contest to see who could do the most to recognize their family! This is where St. Francis Church comes into the story.

12. In the late part of the 19 th and the early part of the 20 th centuries, the Coxe sisters hired an architect from New York to design a private chapel for their family’s funerals. This architect also designed Grand Central Station in New York City! http://img.allposters.com/6/LRG/27/2744/O2BTD00Z.jpg

13. That’s quite a fancy chapel for the small town of Rutherfordton, North Carolina! Notice how the ceiling resembles and unside- down boat. (Early Christians hid from the Romans in upturned boats.)

14. One imported Italian marble altar rails and an altar wall, hand-carved by master artisans.

15. The other ordered a stained glass window to memorialize an ancestor.

16. Now, remember, this was originally just a private family burial chapel. At the back of the church next to the altar area you can see the chamber for the coffins and bodies.

17. But once the other sister decided to add another window, then the other sister added another, etc., they kind of ran out of room. So, the church was enlarged. They then gave it to the Episcopal Diocese.

18. Eventually, just plain stained glass windows would not do. So these two sisters began buying Tiffany Glass windows. The three Tiffany windows are the last religious stained glass the company made.

19. Tiffany glass is characterized by having layers of color. The colors are not as clear, but they have much more depth and create more realistic imagery. They were also quite expensive!

20. This is the last religious stained glass window made by Tiffany Glass Company. These windows are very important historically in the field of decorative arts.

21. Stained glass windows consist of pieces of colored glass which are held together with channels of lead or copper. Typically, the glass pieces represent a piece of the image, like a jigsaw puzzle. Ordinarily, each piece is a different color, unless a large area of one color is present in the design.

22. The art of stained glass originated during the late Middle Ages and Gothic Period, 1100- 1360 A.D. Stained glass windows were built into the large Gothic Cathedrals of Europe, especially in France. http://www.greatdreams.com/sacred/chartres-windows.jpg

23. This tradition, like so many others, is continued in modern culture throughout the United States. The Coxe sisters glorified their family’s memory with the use of this decorative art, also.