Evening Solitude
At the end of the fence rail is the log barn at the Exchange Place in Kingsport Tennessee. John S. Gaines and his family lived at the Exchange Place from 1816 until 1845. He started a store and established the post office of Eden's Ridge in 1831...In 1846 John Preston was walking the property while considering purchasing it. The family tradition is that he came upon a tree near Reedy Creek with a carving that said “D. Boon killd a bar o this tree 1775”. After purchasing the Exchange Place he gave the farm and the carving from the tree to his son, James M. Preston, who hung it on the wall in the gathering room of the Main House at Exchange Place. A copy hangs there today with the original in the Preston home in Abingdon VA...On March 10, 1775 Daniel Boone began building the Wilderness Road at Long Island at what is now Kingsport TN. He and his men began blazing the Wilderness Road starting at the Long Island of the Holston, continuing up Reedy Creek to Leslie Branch and northward through Virginia and west into Kentucky. ..