Francis Asbury was a major figure in the growth of what today we call the United Methodist Church. Asbury, who died on March 31, 1816, was a circuit riding missionary that traveled thousands of miles on horseback in the United States before and after the Revolutionary War. He and Thomas Coke were the first two bishops (or superintendents) of the Methodist church in America and the Cokesbury Christian book stores honor them both as a combination of their names. This is a picture of a statue of Asbury in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood in Washington, DC.
