Kelly's Creek Settlement " Kanawha County, WV

The Walter Kelly family of Kanawha County, WV is my family too. I am descended from Moses Kelly of Kanawha County.


Excerpt

"In 1774 Walter Kelly and family settled on what is now called Kelly's creek, which empties into the Kanawha river twenty miles above Charleston. Here he established himself by taking a "tomahawk title"* to several hundred acres of land, built a cabin and cleared the timber, undergrowth, &c., from a field for farming purposes. In fact, he permanently located at this point; and his settlement was advertised accordingly. The nearest white settlement was in Greenbrier county, where a fort had been constructed for a protection against the attacks of marauding Indians, who infested the country on every hand. His westward advance had been made contrary to the wishes of his friends, and against the better judgment of the Greenbrier colony; but Mr. Kelly, being of adventurous nature and roving disposition, would not be controlled by the advice of his friends, and so, striking out towards the setting sun, he had made a camp for himself and family on the creek which took his name, in this county, fully eighty miles from Donnally's fort, in Greenbrier county, then the western limit of civilization"