This unique area located on the Tenessee River in Chattanooga is rich in both native and historic history. The sites on the bend have been looted for many years and even today it takes the efforts of constant police patrolling to stop it. Some of the sites are also threatened by erosion of the river bank. A plan now in consideration would place parts of the bend into the National Park Service. (SEE)

"CULTURAL RESOURCES
American Indian History
• Moccasin Bend has a rich and varied cultural history, with evidence of human occupation extending to the earliest human cultures in North America. The earliest known aboriginal occupation in Tennessee was during the Paleo-Indian Tradition, estimated to date between 14,000 B.P. and 8,000 B.P. This occupation has been tentatively described in three consecutive horizons: the Clovis horizon, 14,000 12,000 B.P.; the Cumberland-Redstone horizon, 12,000 10,000 B.P., and a third horizon that has been designated as the "Quad," 10,000 8,000 B.P. On Moccasin Bend, Paleo-Indian sites have been located on the Sequatchie loam soil during the construction of the mental health hospital s Johnson and Winston buildings. The Archaic Tradition has been divided into Early, Middle, and Late Archaic periods. A time range from 8,000 to 700 B.P. has been estimated for this stage. On Moccasin Bend, stratified Early Archaic, Kirk horizon projectile points have been recorded. The site, located on the second terrace, was found during the forced main construction, and it extends an unknown distance north and south of the original location point. Middle Archaic components have been uncovered at Moccasin Bend. Evidence of Late Archaic occupation is extensive throughout Moccasin Bend. A number of excavated sites contained extensive stratified deposits, including one site destroyed by dredging operations preceding construction of I-24. Other excavated components included a Late Archaic structure and five associated features including a hearth on the floor was radiocarbon dated at 1335 B.P. Archeologists also reported a cache of eight triangular biface preforms, exotic Dover chert, a rectangular greenstone ax preform, steatite shreds, and a Mulberry Creek projectile point recorded in association with the structure. The Woodland Tradition in southeastern Tennessee can be divided into Early Woodland, 700 B.P. to 200 B.P.; Middle Woodland, 200 B.P. to A.D. 600; and Late Woodland, 600 A.D. to A.D. 1000. The transition from late Archaic to the Early Woodland is characterized by the addition of ceramics to the late Archaic assemblage and a change toward increased floodplain horticulture. Quartzite and sand-tempered ceramics with plan and fabric-marked surface treatments represent the Early Woodland ceramics. The Early and Middle Woodland has been documented at five sites. Extensive Woodland midden with potential structural remains located on the forward slopes of the riverbank have been recorded, but the site was destroyed by dredging. An extensive Woodland midden was located at a site. A structure floor contained limestone tempered plan and complicated stamped sherd. A radiocarbon date of A.D. 405 was reported. The Late Woodland Tradition produced a number of burial mounds. At Moccasin Bend archeologists have described the Hamilton Mortuary Mounds. Other internment sites were plowed, but may contain intact remains. Other Late Woodland sites have been disturbed may be associated with possible Civil War era fortifications and later 19th century burials in iron coffins. The Mississippian Tradition began ca. A.D. 1100 and continued until 1630 to 1650 or later. Archeologists have divided this tradition into Early Mississippian (A.D. 1100 to 1250), Middle Mississippian (A.D. 1250 to 1500), and Late Mississippian (A.D. 1500 to 1650). During the Mississippian Period, aboriginal culture reached a peak with multiple-mound towns, intensive maize horticulture, and a stratified, hereditary political structure. The Chattanooga area was abandoned by Mississippian populations by 1630 when they moved southward to settle. In the period from the 1600s to 1817 1819, Moccasin Bend was minimally occupied. Following the treaty with the U.S. government, the Cherokees were all moved south of the Tennessee and Hiwassee Rivers. The treaty did give the Cherokees the right to claim some land north of the Tennessee River, and several Cherokees and mixed blood Cherokees claimed 640-acre reservations. One such reservation was that of John Brown, a local Cherokee on Moccasin Bend, who claimed a reservation on the right bank of the river at a spot that took his name, Brown s Ferry. (The Moccasin Bend terminus of Brown's Ferry is located on the shoreline of the existing sewage treatment facility and is not in the study area. The western terminus of Brown s Ferry, across the river, is currently on privately owned land). This 640-acre tract north of the terminus of Moccasin Bend included a dwelling located away from the river and on the road from old Washington. This acreage was later sold to Euro-American settlers and probably cleared for agriculture in the 1830s 1840s. Some of the American Indians forcibly removed from the area in 1836 1837 crossed Moccasin Bend probably north of the study area on an abandoned and now obscured road running to Brown s Ferry. The short portion of the Trail of Tears that crosses Moccasin Bend lies outside the study area. A larger number of refugees traveled from Chattanooga downstream on the Tennessee River around Moccasin Bend. The river, which surrounds Moccasin Bend on three sides, is the designated water route of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. With the removal of the Cherokees and the development of Chattanooga as an industrial and transportation center, Moccasin Bend remained largely undeveloped, with only scattered farmstead and a network of roads to the various fords upriver from the town.

  The Civil War at Moccasin Bend

• Civil War action came to the Chattanooga area in late summer 1863 on the heels of earlier campaigns in central Tennessee. Military activity at Moccasin Bend represents two distinct periods of occupation the Federal siege of Chattanooga while it was held by Confederate forces (August-September 1863), and after the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19 20), the Federal positions in the city under siege by the Confederates (September-November 1863).

  Archeological Resources

• In 1983 the entire 956-acre tract was nominated as the Moccasin Bend National Register District, and in 1986 the National Park Service designated the site as a national historic landmark. Work undertaken by the Chattanooga Regional Anthropological Association (CRAA) became pivotal to the designation (McCollough et al. 1985). In 1993 the Civil War Roundtable of Chattanooga joined in the preservation effort at Moccasin Bend. Two additional archeological sites were added to the inventory of Civil War period sites in the complex of gun pits and campsites at the south end of Stringers Ridge known as Fort Whitaker.
• The following archeological resources are contained in the designated Moccasin Bend Archeological District National Historic Landmark. Although the landmark comprises 956 acres, the known archeological resources are primarily concentrated in two major areas: the American Indian sites along the southern and western floodplain areas of Moccasin Bend and the Civil War resource primarily on Stringers Ridge on the bend s eastern flank.Significant known archeological resources at Moccasin Bend have been recovered from 18 sites, including, most importantly, the Vulcan, Mallards Dozen, and Hampton Place, which are located on the western margin of the bend on the present river terrace, and a Woodland site consisting of eight conical mounds located on the toe of Moccasin Bend.
• The Vulcan site is stratified with distinct Terminal Archaic Period and Middle-Late Woodland components. Subsurface testing revealed undisturbed midden deposits, hearth features, and evidence of a Late-Terminal Archaic pit house radiocarbon date at 1335 B.P. Woodland pottery sherds were recovered form upper levels of the sites. General classes of archeological data in this site include subsistence data such as faunal, floral, and midden deposits; architectural data such as structure floors, pit houses, and hearths; and culture chronology data such as charcoal in association with features and decorated ceramics.
• The Mallards Dozen site is a large, deeply and distinctly stratified site with Early-Middle Archaic occupation as well as a concentrated Middle Woodland deposit. Testing discovered a Middle Woodland structure radiocarbon dated at A.D. 405. All classes at this site include subsistence-related food refuse, architectural features, floral and faunal remains, and ceramic and lithic artifacts.
• The most celebrated site, the Hampton Place complex, contains two large Late Mississippian protohistoric towns visited in the 16th century Spanish explorers. The two site areas were surrounded by a palisade, with each area having a Entrance to American Indian sacred site (Hampton Place) Hampton Place."big house," a plaza, and small semisubterranean dwellings. The Hampton Place site contains unparalleled data on the initial influence of European culture on indigenous Southeastern Indian culture. The very large number of human burials may also indicate protohistoric diseases and dietary stresses as shown in skeletal pathologies. At Hampton Place, C. B. Moore (1915) excavated a mortuary structure that contained 31 burials, most of which included early Spanish period trade artifacts. CRAA-conducted fieldwork in 1982 1983 and 1991 has helped to identify the town perimeters and internal structure, map vandal damage, and begin preliminary definition of artifact assemblages present at the site (McCollough and Bass 1983; Alexander 1992). Early Spanish contact materials have been recovered from this town, and Hampton Place may be the site of Coste-Tali visited by DeSoto in 1540. Hampton Place is acknowledged to be one of the most important early European contact sites in the United States. Hampton Place has yielded a significant volume of early Spanish trade material. Additional significance derives from observation that part, if not all, of Hampton Place burned, sealing primary household materials including trade goods in place in its building remnants.
• The eight conical mounds at the toe of Moccasin Bend comprise an important complex of special use sites. The mounds, although partially excavated in 1915, collectively can be expected to yield highly significant data on ceremonial behavior in the Woodland Period. From other regional examples of this type of site, the mounds are expected to contain evidence of construction techniques, a primary "high status" burial, and secondary burials in the mound fill. Even those sites that have been altered contain information on construction techniques and mortuary practices. One of these mounds is also reported to contain a number of historic period coffins, possibly Union army casualties from the action on Stringers Ridge.
• ...Starting in the 1960s the mental health hospital, golf course, radio towers, law enforcement firearm training range, a private residence, and a road have been constructed at Moccasin Bend.
• ...Primary intrusive elements are features within the site that do not contribute to the natural or cultural resource experience and detract from the overall natural or cultural character. These elements include buildings and infrastructure at the state mental health hospital, the radio towers, the law enforcement firearm training range, the golf course development, overhead power lines, and Moccasin Bend Road. The main secondary intrusion (outside the national historic landmark) is the wastewater treatment facility."

SOURCE: Moccasin Bend Cooperative Management Plan and Environmental Assessment (National Park Service)

The Snake Doctor