College of West Africa

The College of West Africa is a Methodist high school in Monrovia, Liberia. The school was opened in 1839 (as the "Monrovia Seminary"), making it one of the oldest European-style schools in Africa. It has produced many of Liberia's leaders and includes among its alumni Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman elected as president in an African state, and Liberian Vice President Joseph Boakai.

The College of West Africa's main building is named in memory of Melville B. Cox, a Methodist missionary from Edenton Street United Methodist Church, who was a founder of the College. A historic stained glass window in the College's auditorium reads: "Though a thousand fall, let not Africa be given up". The Cox family was active in the Methodist Society from its beginning. In March 1821 Melville Cox was licensed to preach by the Kennebec District Conference, and received his first appointment in 1822. Ill health, however, forced Cox to return to Maine in 1825.

Cox moved south in November 1826 to avoid the Maine winter and hopefully recover his health. He preached off and on until 1828, when he married and located. During the next two years he was editor of The Itinerant in Baltimore, until his wife's death in December 1830. Cox returned to the ministry, although his health was still fragile. By mid-1831 Cox had become interested in missions. The Methodist Episcopal Church had formed a Missionary Society in 1819, but no suitable foreign missionary had yet been found. Cox offered himself to Bishop Elijah Hedding for the South American field. Instead, Hedding asked if he would go to Liberia, established on Africa's west coast for freed American slaves.

Cox sailed from Norfolk on November 6, 1832, arriving in Monrovia on March 8, 1833. Melville B. Cox of Maine was the first Methodist missionary to Liberia. His vision for his work in Liberia included establishing a mission house, a school, a seminary for young Christian converts, and churches. His accomplishment to realizing these dreams was the purchasing of a house that had formerly been the property of the Basel Missionary Society; and getting the Methodist Church established in Liberia as a branch of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the U.S. He held camp meeting, started regular worship and Sunday school, and developed mission strategies all within a few weeks of his arrival, but his health was simply not up to the task, and he died of malaria on July 21, 1833 after three months of decline.

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