Donnally Monuments
Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia
Marker Inscription
Moved here from Kanawha City where the original cemetery was created in 1850 by Andrew Donnally Jr. Born Oct. 17. 1778 at Ft. Donnally in Greenbrier County he died June 21. 1849 at his home on the Kanawha opposite Malden.
The Story
This monument preserves the memory of Andrew Donnally Jr. and a cemetery once rooted in Kanawha City before being relocated here. Born in 1778 at Fort Donnally, a fortified frontier station in Greenbrier County during the era of the American Revolution, Donnally belonged to one of the pioneering families who pushed into western Virginia's Kanawha Valley and made their homes along the river opposite the salt-making community of Malden. When his old burying ground was moved, these stones came with it, carrying a family's story from the frontier generation into the settled 19th-century valley.
Why it matters
It marks the reach of Trans-Appalachian settlement, when families from fortified frontier outposts became the founders of the river communities that shaped western Virginia and, later, West Virginia.
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Related people
- · Andrew Donnally Jr.
Themes & tags
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