• Kanawha County home page

Charleston, the capital of West Virginia and county seat of Kanawha County, was the home of Daniel Boone for seven years. Boone lived in the Kanawha City section of Charleston with his family in a two-room log cabin.

He was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the Kanawha County Militia, and when the county had its first election for the Virginia legislature in 1789 Boone was chosen. He returned to Kentucky in 1795.

Charleston, also, is the home of "Mad Ann." Ann Bailey was a cockney-speaking English woman who could ride horses and shoot rifles with the best in the west. The Indians thought she had an evil spirit and called her "Great White Squaw." She is remembered for her daring, secret rides to bring supplies to Fort Lee while it was under attack. She called her prize horse "Liverpool," after the place of her birth in England.

The first white people to come to Charleston in 1755 were two women taken captive by some Indians on their way to Shawnee Village at Chillicothe, Ohio. They were Mary Ingles and Betty Draper, captured during the Ingles-Draper Massacre at Draper Meadows.

Col. Thomas Bullitt staked out a 1,040 acre claim where the city now stands and in 1787 sold it to Col. George Clendenin. In 1794 the Virginia Assembly chartered the town, but called it Charles Town. Later the name was shorted to Charleston in honor of Clendenin's father. THe city was first settled by the Scots, Irish, and German immigrants.

The city is known for its chemical and glass industries. It is the trading center for the Great Kanawha Valley. It is the home of Morris-Harvey College and the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts.

Both Charleston and Kanawha County are located on the Kanawha River in the Allegheny Plateau. The county's economy includes bituminous coal, natural gas, oil wells, corn, dairy products, livestock, potatoes, and timber.