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 LONG ISLAND OF THE HOLSTON - Kingsport, TN Posted by:  vhasler
N 36° 32.976 W 082° 35.170
17S E 358035 N 4046080
The island was a sacred place of the Cherokee nation and a staging location for early settlers.
Waymark Code: WM9WZ0
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 10/07/2010
Views: 3
The guidebook has a longer discussion of this location:
The LONG ISLAND OF THE HOLSTON, where the Treaty of the
Long Island of the Holston was signed, divides the river for four miles southwest of Kingsport. Here, in July 1777, the warring Cherokee, after two years of fighting met the commissioners of Virginia and North Carolina, and made peace with the white invaders. William Christian, William Preston, and Evan Shelby represented Virginia. North Carolina sent as its agents, Waightstill Avery, William Sharp, Robert Lanier, and Joseph Winston. From the Overhill towns came the headmen of the Cherokee grim-faced Oconastota (the Great Warrior of Chota), Old Tassel of Toquah, the Raven of Chota, and peaceful old Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter), the steadfast friend of the whites for more than half a century.
The council fire was kindled and around it gathered Indian chiefs, long hunters in buckskin, settlers, and back country militiamen whose rough overbearing manners sorely tried the Indians' patience. The "good talks" were about to begin when an unknown white man killed an Indian brave named the Big Bullet. Immediately "Peace Island" became an armed camp. The angry commissioners offered $600 reward for the capture of the murderer but he was never found. After the Indians had been calmed by presents "with which to cover the grave of the slain warrior,' the conference continued.
The Cherokee ceded to Virginia all of their claims north of a line from a point about three miles west of Cumberland Gap to the Holston River at the junction with Cloud's Creek. To North Carolina the Indians ceded land north and east of Cloud's Creek to Chimney Top, to the Nolichucky, ten miles below the mouth of Limestone Creek and thence southeastward into the territory of the Cherokee Middle Towns. No white man was supposed to cross these boundaries "on any pretense whatsoever," The Indians refused to give up the Long Island to any person except Col. Nathaniel Gist, with whom they recognized joint ownership. The treaty contained the following memorandum: "That Colonel Gist might sit down upon Long Island when he pleased as it belonged to him to hold good talks on." Col Nathaniel Gist, son of Christopher Gist, Washington's guide to Fort Duquesne, is said to have been the father of the half-breed, George Guess or Gist (Sequoyah), inventor of the Cherokee alphabet.
It was while serving as a surgeon with the troops at the Long Island in 1776, that one Dr. Patrick Vance discovered a method of treating scalped persons. In one of the Draper Manuscripts (Wisconsin Historical Society collection), Dr. Vance states:
I have found that a flat-pointed, straight awl is the best instrument to bore with, as the skull is thick and somewhat difficult to penetrate. When the awi is nearly through, the instrument should be borne more lightly upon. The time to quit boring is when a reddish fluid appears on the point of the awl. I bore at first about one inch apart and as the flesh appears to rise in these holes, I bore a number more between the first and second, etc.
The scalped head cures slowly. It skins remarkably slow, generally taking two years."
----- TENNESSEE - A Guide to the State (third printing 1949)
Long Island is roughly 4 miles in length with 1/2 mile average width. It is bounded by the South Fork of the Holston River (formerly also called the Hogohegee) and Big Sluice.
The coordinates are at a monument where the City of Kingsport in July 1976 returned 3.61 acres of the northwest end of the island to the Cherokee Nation. Access is over a pedestrian suspension bridge.
The southeast end of Long Island is occupied by the Eastman Chemical Company. Also on the island are the baseball fields of Domtar Park.
For more information see the Discover Kingsport website link
Book: Tennessee
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 284, 286
Year Originally Published: 1939
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