Thomas Hannan (Virginia settler)
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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 | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 25, 1757 |
| Died | April 18, 1835 (aged 77) |
Service years | 1774, 1776-1777, 1781 |
Conflicts | Lord 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:
- Hannan Trace Elementary School in Crown City, Ohio
- Hannan High School and Hannan Public Library in Ashton, West Virginia
- Hannan District, Mason County, West Virginia
