"The Place", as it is referred to by the old-timers, is about twenty-two miles south of Marsh Harbour, the capital of Abaco, one of the northern most Bahama Islands, a little more than two hundred miles off the eastern coast of the United States and Florida's southern shores. It measures approximately one square mile in size and has a population of about 160 residents.

No one knows for sure where 'the place' got its name but one theory is that it was named after a local wild Welcome to Cherokee Soundcherry tree and according to some old-English sailing charts was identified as 'Cherry Cay' (cay pronounced 'key' locally today). Another story about the first settler being an old Indian woman who was suppose to have come from the Cherokee Nation in North Carolina during the American Revolution, and she named the settlement after her ancestors. Records of marriages, births, deaths, crop yields and annual rainfall were forwarded to Nassau since the early 1800's, but no journals, diaries or other communications have survived to tell us the real history about 'the place' except local storytellers. We do know that a Petition was submitted to Parliment following a severe storm in 1822; it pleaded for financial assistance to keep many families from starving. The list of petitioners included Albury, Bethel, Johnson, Pinder, Roberts, Russell, Sands, Sawyer and Sweeting, and all but two of these families still reside in Cherokee today.