Thomas Hannan (Virginia settler)

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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

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).

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

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.[1] A number of institutions have been named for Hannan and his trail:

References[edit]

  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.

External links[edit]

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