Long Island in Kingsport was once sacred land and according to author Charles Edwin Price, ghostly echoes of Native American rites and even the sounds of a shootout from Kingsport’s past can sometimes be heard on the island. Urban legend also says that the specter of a “homicidal, club-wielding maniac who periodically attacks lovers on lonely nights” (Price, p. 18) is seen here. Charles Edwin Price explains in his 1992 book Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee: The [Native North American Cherokee] Indians who once used the Long Island of Holston River for sacred ceremonies died long ago, but their voices can still be heard on moonlit nights – strange languages mixed with the antiquated English of [18th]-century [Caucasians]. On the now-polluted waters of the Holston in Kingsport, ghostly images of canoes and warriors are sometimes seen making shore on some long-forgotten peace mission. Ghostly campfires appear, surrounded by young braves and old warriors smoking the pipe of peace. (Price, p. 13)Long Island had been sacred land before Native North American Cherokee Indians claimed it, but it was one of these shamans who allegedly cursed the land. Many historians believe that Tennessee was named after this island because the Native North American Yuchi Indian word for it was Tenasi (TIN-ah-SEE), or “meeting place”. On 07/20/1777, Long Island was ceded to the Caucasian encroachers. Charles Edwin Price continues this tale in his book Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee: Shortly after the treaty was signed, the Cherokee left their sacred island for the last time, but not until a disgruntled medicine man cursed the ground. Summoning evil spirits of the dead with weird chants and incantation, he decreed that no white man would ever live again on the island in peace. (Price, p. 16)This great necromantic power was not documented by James Mooney in his resourceful book Myths of the Cherokee; and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, and the most horrible malevolent spirit mentioned in Cherokee mythology was Kalona Ayeliski (KUH-oh-NUH uh-YAY-lee-SKEE), or the “Raven Mocker”, who would in the guise of a raven steal the few remaining days someone had to live from their wasting bodies.However, there was precedence to regard curses muttered by high-ranking Cherokee as deadly serious. On 03/17/1775, the Transylvania Colony purchased present-day Kentucky from the Native North American Cherokee Indians at Fort Watauga in present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee. The one Cherokee who disagreed announced that the company had just bought “dark and bloody ground”. His name was Dragging Canoe and his threat came to fruition when he formed the separatist Native American Chickamauga Indians and began leading raiding parties, murdering almost all Caucasian persons they came across. Even people who did not believe in curses knew that, until Eastman Chemical Company swallowed Long Island, it was a rough place, perhaps even creating the club-wielding psychopath to keep teenagers from going there. As outlined in The East Tennessee Historical Society's Publications, Vol. 58 – 59 printed in 1988, there were an unusually high number of crimes that took place on the island.Probably drawing from this book, Price outlined a long-ago shootout that he claims can still be heard to this day. On 04/13/1925, an outlaw named William Kenneth "Kinnie" Wagner was ambushed by Kingsport authorities because the man was wanted in Mississippi for allegedly shooting a deputy. The webpage titled "The Kinnie Wagner Story” goes into further detail: While Kinnie was hiding out in the Kingsport, Tennessee area, local law enforcement learned of Kinnie’s plans to meet with his sister, whom he had not seen in many years. She was graduating from high school and to see her brother again was one of her biggest wishes.What a great scenario for an ambush! It was a brilliant idea at the time, apparently the law in [Kingsport], Tennessee never talked to the law in Lucedale, Mississippi!When Kinnie came into view, the shooting started. He returned fire, creating ten orphans and two widows with the immediate deaths of two lawmen. A third lawman lay seriously wounded while Kinnie made good his escape across the Holston River. Dozens of men joined in the manhunt for Kinnie. In time, he surrendered and was sent to Blountville to stand trial. The trial netted him a guilty verdict and a date with the Tennessee electric chair. (Wilson Jay's South)Today, a tiny portion of the island is accessible by a swinging bridge. The park is closed at night, however, so it is unclear if the sounds of the past still haunt Long Island.
