Thomas Hannan (Virginia settler)

Thomas Hannan (December 25, 1757 - April 18, 1835) was an American Revolutionary War soldier and first Anglo settler of the Kanawha River region of Virginia (now West Virginia).

Thomas Hannan
BornDecember 25, 1757
Frederick County, Virginia
DiedApril 18, 1835
Cabell County, [West] Virginia
Years of service1774, 1776-1777, 1781
Battles/warsLord Dunmore's War
American Revolutionary War

Biography

Early life

Thomas Hannan was born on December 25, 1757, in Frederick County, Virginia to Thomas Hannan and Lucretia Morris.[1] In 1781, he married Elizabeth Henry.[2]

Military service

Hannan first fought in Lord Dunmore's War at the Battle of Point Pleasant.[3][4] At the start of the American Revolutionary War, he enlisted in the navy for one year.[5] In 1781, several years after his initial term of enlistment, he was drafted into a rifle regiment and served at the Battle of Yorktown.[6]

Western Virginia settler

After the war, Hannan was granted nearly 1,000 acres of land and moved west,[7] becoming the first Anglo settler of Cabell County, West Virginia (the current location of Huntington, West Virginia)[8][9][10][11] and one of the earliest settlers of the Kanawha and Ohio River Basin.[12] He forged "Hannan's Trace," one of the original roads to the West from Virginia,[13] the first roadway through what would later become Mason County, West Virginia[14][15] and Cabell County, as well as a principal route from western West Virginia and the interior of Ohio.[16] This path linked the then-capital of the Northwest Territory, Chillicothe, Ohio, to points in the Eastern United States. Hannan was a friend and neighbor of several other early settlers in the Kanawha Valley region, including Anne Bailey[17]and Daniel Boone.[18]

Legacy

There is an historical marker for Hannan, erected in 2009 by West Virginia Archives and History, near Glenwood, West Virginia, on Huntington Road in Mason County. A number of institutions have been named for Hannan and his trail:

References
  1. West Virginia, Find A Grave Index, 1780-2012 (database on-line). Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 2012.
  2. Virginia, Select Marriages, 1785-1940 (database on-line). Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 2014.
  3. Averill, James P. 1882. History of Gallia County. H. H. Hardesty & Co. Publishers: Chicago.Deeds and wills.
  4. Miller, Thomas Condit, and Hu Maxwell. 1913. West Virginia and Its People. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company.
  5. "Pension Application of Thomas Hannan (Hannon), R4578." June 24, 1834. Transcribed by Will Graves. Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters. Cabell County, Virginia. Available online: http://revwarapps.org/r4578.pdf
  6. "Pension Application of Thomas Hannan (Hannon), R4578." June 24, 1834. Transcribed by Will Graves. Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters. Cabell County, Virginia. Available online: http://revwarapps.org/r4578.pdf
  7. Davis-DeEulis, Marilyn. 1997. "Slavery on the Margins of the Virginia Frontier: African American Literacy in Western Kanawha and Cabell Counties, 1795-1840." In Diversity & Accommodation: Essays ohttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Hannan_(American_settler)&action=editn the Cultural Composition of the Virginia Frontier, edited by Michael J. Puglisi. University of Tennessee Press.
  8. Averill, James P. 1882. History of Gallia County. H. H. Hardesty & Co. Publishers: Chicago.Deeds and wills.
  9. Laidley, W.S. 1901. "The West End of West Virginia." The West Virginia Historical Magazine Quarterly 1:5-41. The West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society.
  10. Miller, Thomas Condit, and Hu Maxwell. 1913. West Virginia and Its People. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company.
  11. Brant, Fuller, & Co. 1891. History of the Great Kanawha Valley: With Family History and Biographical Sketches. Madison, Wisconsin.
  12. Davis-DeEulis, Marilyn. 1997. "Slavery on the Margins of the Virginia Frontier: African American Literacy in Western Kanawha and Cabell Counties, 1795-1840." In Diversity & Accommodation: Essays on the Cultural Composition of the Virginia Frontier, edited by Michael J. Puglisi. University of Tennessee Press.
  13. Cantor, George. 1997. Old Roads of the Midwest. University of Michigan.
  14. Averill, James P. 1882. History of Gallia County. H. H. Hardesty & Co. Publishers: Chicago.Deeds and wills.
  15. Cantor, George. 1997. Old Roads of the Midwest. University of Michigan.
  16. Works Progress Administration. 1940. The Ohio Guide. New York: Oxford University Press.
  17. Lewis, Virgil A., and C. Steven Badgley. 2009. The Life and Times of Anne Bailey. Badgley Publishing Company: Canal Winchester, OH.
  18. Averill, James P. 1882. History of Gallia County. H. H. Hardesty & Co. Publishers: Chicago.Deeds and wills.
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