Kingsport's Is 100! Also 200!

 

Kingsport Celebrates Bicentennial 

5 Years After Celebrating Centennial

Kingsport celebrated its bicentennial this past weekend with five-hours of festivities at the Netherland Inn.

Constant readers may recall that Kingsport celebrated its centennial with a yearlong celebration a mere five years ago.

How does that work?

It’s not some anomaly created by the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. (That happened in 1752 and did affect George Washington’s birthday.)

Kingsport was first chartered by the Tennessee legislature on Aug. 21, 1822. But sometime after the Civil War, the few folks who still lived in the town apparently forgot, or never knew, that Kingsport had been chartered by the state.

So when George L. Carter set out to “boom” a town on the Holston River in the early years of the twentieth century, the locals got a second charter in 1917.

I wrote about the whole confusing episode in my centennial book “An Unconventional History of Kingsport.”

Here is that story, in all its glory:

 When George L. Carter died in 1936, the headline on the story in the Kingsport Times called him the “Founder of Kingsport.”

This would certainly surprise Kingsport residents 80 years later who had been raised to believe that J. Fred Johnson was the father of their town. After all there is J. Fred Johnson Memorial Stadium and J. Fred Johnson Memorial Library and J. Fred Johnson Memorial Park and once upon a time there was J. Fred Johnson & Co. department store. But only one thing in Kingsport is named for George L. Carter, the railroad yard that runs next to Lincoln Street. And few people know that.

Those same modern residents might also be surprised to learn that Kingsport has two birthdates. That’s because there were two Kingsport’s.

There was old Kingsport, a river port village on the Holston, settled in the early years of the nineteenth century and home to a robust river trade.

That Kingsport was granted incorporation in an 1822 act of the Tennessee legislature.

But almost a hundred years later came modern Kingsport, a planned industrial town, founded by George L. Carter several miles east from the original Kingsport.

Two Kingsports. Two birthdates. Two, maybe even three or four founders, depending on who’s making the calculation.

Even the name is in question: King’s Port. Who was King?

Nearby Bristol may be the Twin Cities but the story of Kingsport really is a tale of two cities.

 

Kingsport, before it was Kingsport, had many names.

The Cherokee called it Peace Island or Long Island.

When the white settlers arrived, in the late 1700s, they had their own names. Local historian Raymond F. Hunt Jr., writing in the Kingsport Times in 1956, traced those various names from 1802, “when Robert Christian began to sell lots from the plantation he had inherited from his father, Gilbert Christian. He called the village ‘Christiansville,’ but evidently the common name was the ‘Boatyard.’ Some deeds speak of lots being ‘in the town of Christiansville commonly called Boatyard.’ And other records of the time, such as store journals, church records, newspapers, and family histories usually called it ‘Boatyard’ or perhaps ‘Christiansville Boatyard.’”

It turned out Robert Christian wasn’t the only budding real estate tycoon in the fledgling town. 

Hunt adds, “In 1805 John Crum laid out lots for the town of Manchester or Crumtown, around where Sullivan Street and Bloomingdale now meet. In 1818, Frederick A. Ross began to sell lots along the river just downstream from Christian's tract. He called this development ‘Rossville.’ The names ‘Crumtown’ and ‘Rossville’ appear for a short time in deed records, but then give way to ‘Boat yard,’ which grew to include them as well.”

And so it was that for the first couple of decades of the 1800s it was known mostly by the simple, descriptive but bland name Boat Yard.

That’s when the “King” part came to town, or more correctly, the Kings. You see there were two different Kings who bought property in Boat Yard. And as it turns out, on the same day.

William King owned the salt works in Saltville, Virginia and needed a port to ship his salt. He found Boat Yard the perfect port. And it was only 40 miles away by wagon.

And James King, no relation, owned an iron works near Bristol, and he also needed a port from which to ship his iron. And he too found Boat Yard.

And this is where it really gets confusing. Hunt writes, “In 1802 James’ son William bought a lot from Robert Christian at the Boatyard on which was built a warehouse for storing iron from the iron works while it awaited flatboat shipping.”

That same day the other King, the salt magnate, also bought a lot in Boat Yard. So you have two William Kings buying lots. On the same day.

Neither ever lived in Kingsport.

They bought the lots for warehouses.

Hunt offered a classic “but on the one hand, but on the other hand” argument for which King lent his name to King’s Port.

 “It has never been fully settled whether Kingsport was named for William King who ran the salt works or for James King who ran the iron works. There is evidence to favor both. Records of that day make it look like the shipment of William King's salt was the Boatyard's major business. This is in contrast to James King's iron works, which were much smaller and less profitable. These points tend to favor William King over James King as the man for whom Kingsport was named. On the other hand the dates of various events favor James King over William King. For William King died in 1808, 14 years before Kingsport got its present name and James King lived until 1825. Of course it is possible that the town could have been named for William even that long after he died, especially since the salt works was operated as actively as ever by his heirs.”

Many other local historians have tackled the King question over the decades, some favoring one King, others favoring the other.

Hunt makes persuasive arguments each way and concludes, “With the evidence at hand it must at present remain unsettled as to which of these two men Kingsport was named for. The evidence seems to favor William King, but not decisively so.”

Sixty years after Hunt’s article the question remains unsettled.

On August 21, 1822 the Tennessee General Assembly made it official, legally creating the town of Kingsport.

From the book “Acts of a General, or Public Nature, Passed at the Second Session of the Fourteenth General Assembly of the State Of Tennessee:”

Page 107

Chapter CXXVII

An Act to incorporate the town of Kingsport in Sullivan County.

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee that the town of Kingsport in Sullivan County and the inhabitants constituted thereof are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate by the Mayor and aldermen of the town of Kingsport to include all the lots from the East end of Ross Bridge to the fork of the Reedy Creek road under the same rules and regulations, restrictions and privileges of the town of Blountville and that this act shall be in force from and after passage thereof.

It was signed by James Fentress, speaker of the House of Representatives, and Sterling Brewer, speaker of the Senate.

Those simple boundaries would today extend from the old Rotherwood Bridge on the west to the intersection of Clinchfield Street (an extension of Bloomingdale Pike) and West Sullivan Street on the east with the Holston River serving as the southern border. 

The new name of Kingsport didn’t catch on immediately. Hunt notes, “For a time the name of Boatyard persisted, although the town was officially Kingsport. In fact, the records show a distinct reluctance of the local inhabitants to give up the name of Boatyard in favor of Kingsport. As late as 1831 some deeds referred to ‘the town of Kingsport, commonly called the Boat Yard.’ Some people were quicker to change over. George and Phillip Hale, who ran a store in the Boatyard, changed to using Kingsport on their store records in 1824. Nonetheless, probably not until 1840 was the name ‘Kingsport’ generally accepted.

But others around the state were beginning to take notice of this new town.

From 'The Tennessee Gazetteer' 

Eastin Morris included Kingsport in the first edition of his 1834 book “The Tennessee Gazetteer.”

“Kingsport, a post town in Sullivan county, situated on the north side of Holston river at a place known by the name of the Boat-yard, one mile above the junction with the North Fork, which is the line between Sullivan and Hawkins. It contains about fifty families, 317 inhabitants, two taverns, two stores, two physicians, one methodist and one presbyterian church and there is a good bridge across the North Fork.”

Years later Chancellor John Allison, a Nashville attorney, judge and author, with roots in Kingsport, read Morris’ “Gazetteer” and spotted what he thought were errors. He dashed off a letter in early 1916 to the Kingsport News, a short-lived publication that predated the Kingsport Times. The Times would reprint that letter shortly after the News’ demise.

“Mr. Morris says he got his information as to Sullivan county from ‘John Lynch, Jr. and Samuel Rhea, Esqur.’ and so the information given was accurate as far as it went; but my mother at that time was the wife of Richard Gammon, Jr., and resided in Blountville, and her father (my grandfather), John Chester, resided at the same time near the ‘Yellow Store,’ in Hawkins county, and my mother in visiting him passed through the 'Boat-Yard" in going and returning and she is my authority for the information that at that period there were in the ‘Boat-Yard’ a hatter shop, a tin shop, a tailor, a coppersmith, a wagon maker, a blacksmith, shoe-maker, harness and saddle maker, all of whose names she told me but which I have forgotten. The Sunday clothes worn by men of that period were all made by the local tailor.”

So the business life in the Kingsport of the 1820s was considerably more varied than a couple of stores and a couple of taverns.

One of those taverns was, of course, the Netherland Inn, which still stands.

1933 photo of Netherland Inn

Richard Netherland married into his Kingsport property. His wife, Margaret Woods, was one of five daughters of Samuel Woods, a wealthy Virginia planter, who had purchased the 800 acres of Long Island from William Cocke, who sold him the property without clear legal ownership. Cocke claimed title because he had purchased “corn rights” from the Cherokee. It was a long, messy dispute finally settled when the Cherokee signed the Dearborn Treaty of 1806.

Longtime Kingsport historian Muriel Spoden wrote that it was difficult to pinpoint when Richard and Margaret moved to their Long Island plantation, settling on 1810 as the probable date. Richard and Margaret built a two-story brick plantation house. In 1818 he purchased the Inn from the estate of William King – the salt magnate - and renamed it.

For the next four decades Kingsport was a bustling riverport, sending grain, flour, bacon, salt and iron downriver by flatboats. Morris estimated some 4,000 pounds of goods were shipped each year from the boatyard at Kingsport. It was also a busy trading post because of its location on the Island Road, the first wagon road into the southwest.

Methodist minister Reverend H.P. Waugh in an 1886 newspaper clipping – published in the Kingsport Times in 1916 - reflected on the Kingsport of the 1830s:

“Kingsport was one of the most active, lively, business places in the State east of Knoxville. Here thousands of barrels of salt could be seen stacked upon the river bank, waiting for tides and flat boats to carry it off. It was brought to this place in wagons from Saltville, Va., and then sent down the river to New Orleans and all over the South. Here a large mercantile business was carried on by such firms as Lynn, Wall & Co., Brownlow, Pulton & Co., John Lynn & Co., D. Rogan & Co., James O'Brien & Co., Simpson & Co., Baughman, Dameion & Co., and many others not now known. The first mentioned firm also operated a large spinning factory on the point of the island just opposite the town, and a large hemp factory was in operation, owned by Rogan & Myers, and a few years later another spinning factory was erected a little lower down at the mouth of the north fork by Rev. F. A. Ross, and then there was an iron forge or foundry, grist mill, etc.”

Hal Spoden's 1969 map of 1820 Kingsport (drawn for Kingsport Times-News)

But in a few years all that hustle and bustle was about to cease.

In 1931, the Kingsport Times wrote, “In 1850 the East Tennessee and Georgia Railway was being promoted. The natural route for the line was through Kingsport. However, rivalry sprung up between Jonesboro and Kingsport with a group of Jonesboro citizens finally coming to Kingsport and interviewing (Richard’s son) John Netherland, proposing that should Kingsport let Jonesboro have the railway they in turn would do all in their power to obtain an appropriation from the state to deepen the Holston river channel so that it would be navigable for steam boats. To prove that steamers could use the river two steam boats; ‘Mary McKinley’ and the ‘Casandra’ puffed into Kingsport. The, boats arrived during high water and as the river level lowered they were left stranded on a sand bar. Jonesboro obtained the railway which later became the Southern Railroad and Kingsport for many years had neither railroad nor river transportation.”

The loss of the railroad was the beginning of the end for the first Kingsport. The town was withering away from lack of trade.

And then came the Civil War. 

Oliver Taylor in his county history, “Historic Sullivan,” wrote, “(Kingsport) was aroused and often disturbed during the war between the States. The most important engagement was during Stoneman's raid in December, 1864. Arriving at Rotherwood with 5,000 Federal soldiers, General Stoneman found his further advance opposed by Gen. Basil Duke's men, under command of Col. R. C. Morgan, a brother of Gen. John Morgan, the noted Confederate cavalryman. Morgan had only 350 men, but, with the river and rocky cliff to shield him, held back the Federals for several hours. In the afternoon Gen. Stoneman sent Col. Putnam up the river, where he crossed, surrounded the Confederates and defeated them.”

When Rev. Waugh revisited Kingsport in 1886, he was shocked at how different Kingsport was. “How changed and dilapidated is the old town! I look up Main street for those once flourishing mercantile houses; they are all gone - having long since been swept away by the high tides in the river. I inquired for the owners and proprietors of these houses and they are all gone - having been swept off by the river of death out into the great ocean of eternity.”

The first town of Kingsport was, for all practical purposes, over.

The few who remained in the area soon forgot that Kingsport had once been a town.