Cokesbury Memorial United Methodist Church was first called the Abingdon Methodist Chapel. It was built on land purchased in 1782 from John Paca, the brother of the Governor of Maryland. By 1784 it was opened for worship. This Methodist church has served its community faithfully for more than 200 years and is the oldest Methodist church in Harford County that rests on its original foundation with an on-going service to its parishoners.

The original church of 1784 was partially brick, mostly wooden structure which burned in 1896. Immediately, upon its original foundation, the present little brick church was erected. Services were held in the autumn of 1896; concern for the community at no time was interrupted; and the church today serves the needs of the extended Abingdon community.

The first Methodist college in the world was built in the area now occupied by Cokesbury's cemetery. Two of John Wesley's hardest working ministers in America since 1772, Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, had long dreamed of establishing a college for the training of Methodist ministers in America. They were given permission to do so and chose Abingdon for this honor. On June 5, 1785, the cornerstone was laid, and Asbury, the newly appointed bishop at the famous Christmas Conference of 1784 at Lovely Lane Church in Baltimore, delivered the Foundation Stone sermon.

Abingdon was chosen as the site of the college for a number of reasons: The community was on the main post road between Baltimore and Philadelphia, Maryland was in the center of the thirteen original colonies, a working church was on the premises, and the site itself "on a grassy knoll overlooking the Bay (the arm now known as Bush River) was a most pleasant and pleasing place."

However, the college had a very short life, for it was burned to the ground in December of 1795. Only the brick foundation of the college and the tower bell were left intact among the ruins, and there was no attempt to rebuild the college in Abingdon. A smaller college was built on Pratt Street in Baltimore but it burned in 1797 and no further plans for a college were made. It is worthy to note, and indeed is almost miraculous, that the little Abingdon Chapel--only forty feet from the college--did not burn when the college did.

Abingdon should be justly proud of its place in the history of Methodism. Cokesbury Memorial UMC has the oldest on-going Methodist congregation in Harford County still worshipping in its original location; it was the site of the first Methodist college in the world; and it is living testimony to the dreams of Asbury and Coke in proclaiming and spreading the Methodist faith as a part of God's plan for us.