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Hi Julie,
Thank you for your kind note. I appreciate the many offers of connecting to family members and the other websites of the DONALLY family, which you list. I am definitely interested, especially with meeting new ATKESON and DONALLY cousins.
It seems that the issue of the DONALY/DONNALLY family or families, was not a clear one, even for my great great uncle, Thomas Clark ATKESON. I would be very interested to know what Edward Thomas ATKESON thinks, since he may be privy to background about his great-grandfather’s book, "Pioneering in Agriculture." My great-grandfather was Clarence L. C. ATKESON, Thomas Clark’s brother. In 1900, when he was 48, Thomas Clark ATKESON distributed to the family an informal family history entitled "History of The Atkinson-Atkeson Family." Here is the excerpt, which begins my puzzlement:
"Part 2. THOMAS ATKESON …He (Thomas ATKESON) then got a job building post and rail fence for Andrew Donally. A little before Christmas he returned home with a respectable suit of clothes and very little money as the proceeds of eight months of contact with the world on his own hook.
He spent the winter at home helping with the clearing and other farm work, and in the spring of 1828, returned to Kanawha and in connection with his brother William went to making rails, up Elk, and after boating them to the salt works, put them up for Col. Andrew Donally. This Col. Donally was a salt maker and in no way related to Thomas Atkeson’s mother whose maiden name was Donally."
In 1937, when he was 85, "Pioneering in Agriculture" was published. As you probably know, he co-wrote the book with his daughter Mary Meek ATKESON. Here is an excerpt from the first page of that book, with which you are probably familiar:
"…my grandfather, John Atkeson, married Mary Donnally (daughter of old Colonel Andrew Donnally of Indian Wars fame), and my father, Thomas Atkeson, was born in 1804."
What happened in 37 years that changed his mind about Mary DONALLY/DONNALLY’s parentage? Thomas, his father, died in 1888. Which means that Thomas Clark had no way to corroborate his genealogical questions with his father before he distributed his history in 1900, much less review his book of 1937. There could be a simple answer, of course: he found new evidence to connect him to Col. Andrew DONNALLY Sr.. It is that evidence that I have looked for. Unfortunately, all I have from the family are the history and book by Thomas Clark ATKESON, which are contradictory. They include facts, which point to two separate DONALLY/DONNALLY family groups. So far, I have used the following three secondary sources, along with the U. S. Census and Sims Index of Land Grants in West Virginia, George Wesley ATKINSON's "History of Kanawha County," and W. S. Laidley's "History of Charleston and Kanawha Co., WV," to try to make some sense of these conflicting accounts.
SOURCE 1: "History of The Atkinson-Atkeson Family," by Thomas Clark ATKESON, 1900
This source notes the following family members for Mary DONALLY, Thomas Clark’s grandmother:
1. Sarah DONALLY: Mary’s sister, who married Mary’s brother-in-law, George ATKINSON. Having no marriage date for Sarah, I don’t know whether she married George before or after Mary married her husband John ATKESON (5 Sep 1768-12 Oct 1823). [Thomas Clark listed it thus: "GEORGE ATKINSON was born in Penna. in 1776, (this date seems to be authentic) was married to a Miss Sarah Donally in Greenbrier Co., (she was a sister of the grandmother of the writer). They moved to Elk river in Kanawha Co.…" There is a George ATKERSON listed in the U. S. Census of Kanawha Co., VA for 1810. He is listed as age 26 and under 45, which would corroborate the 1776 birthdate given by Thomas Clark. I couldn’t find any other entries after that. I don’t have a death date for him or Sarah, whom I have no dates for at all. George Wesley ATKINSON, who was a writer and Governor of WV, was also a grandson of George and Sarah. In his "History of Kanawha County," published in 1876, he lists no dates for his grandparents nor does he connect his family to that of Col. Andrew DONNALLY, which seems odd since DONNALLY was such an important local figure. Neither does W. S. Laidley, who wrote the classic "History of Charleston and Kanawha Co., WV" text, published in 1911.]
2. Dominick DONALLY: Mary’s brother, who lived in Gallipolis, Gallia Co., OH. Thomas Clark writes in the history that Thomas ATKESON, his father, visited his uncle Dominick in Gallipolis in the spring of 1830. [There is a Dominick listed in the 1830 U.S. Census for Gallia Co., OH. Listed as 40 to 50 years of age, this would put his birthdate between, 1780 and 1790. This would make him a possible contemporary of his alleged sister, Mary, who was born in 1778. There is also a Dominick DONNALLY mentioned in Sims Index of Land Grants for West Virginia for Greenbrier Co. This Dominick purchased land in 1800. He purchased land listed as "Cranberry" (possibly a creek or area), the area in which his alleged brother, Thomas, also purchased land in the same year.]
3. and 4. Thomas and James DONALLY: Mary’s brothers, who lived in Greenbrier Co., VA. Thomas Clark writes in the history that Mary and her son Thomas visited her brothers there in 1824. [There is a Thomas and James DONLY listed in the 1820 and 1830 Greenbrier Co., VA censuses. Based on the census information, they were born between 1775-1780. Which also makes them contemporaries of Mary, their alleged sister. As mentioned above, there is also a James and Thomas DONNALLY mentioned in Sims Index of Land Grants for West Virginia for Greenbrier Co. They purchased land in 1792 and 1800.]
If Mary is the daughter of Col. Andrew DONNALLY Sr., as stated in "Pioneering in Agriculture," then these siblings of Mary would also be the Colonel’s children as well.
Looking for corroboration of this, I turned to another source.
SOURCE 2: "Pioneers and their Homes on the Upper Kanawha" by Ruth Woods Dayton, 1947.
The author listed Colonel Andrew DONNALLY, Sr. and his family as follows:
"Colonel and Mrs. Donnally were the parents of six daughters and two sons. The daughters were: Mary (Polly), who in 1791 married Reuben Slaughter, son of Goodrich Slaughter, First surveyor of Kanawha County; Sally, who married Samuel Henderson in 1801; Katherine, who married Captain John Wilson in 1803, and Elizabeth and Nancy."
[The author probably meant, "six children, four daughters and two sons."]
Ms. Dayton also lists on p. 301, a descendant list for Andrew DONNALLY Jr., b 17 Oct 1778. She doesn’t list Maude as being a sister of Mary, but rather a great-grand daughter of Col. Andrew DONNALLY, Sr.:
Andrew DONNALLY Jr.=Marjory VanBibber
VIII Child: William (1822-?), m. Margaret Wood.
Williams’s child number (7) Maude, m. A. B. Lewis
Ms. Dayton also lists the saltmakers of Kanawha Co., and it appears all those listed with the DONNALLY name were either owned and operated by Col. Andrew DONNALLY Sr. or his son Col. Andrew DONNALLY, Jr. This further defines who Thomas Clark was talking about in his history, when he said that his father Thomas worked for a "Col. Donally [who] was a salt maker and in no way related to Thomas Atkeson’s mother whose maiden name was Donally." It is possible that a third Col. Andrew DONNALLY existed, but I have no evidence of this.
It is also good to note Mary DONALLY, Thomas Clark’s grandmother, was born on 26 Mar 1778 and died 9 Jan 1854. This birthdate would also make it difficult for her to be the daughter of Col. Andrew, Sr., otherwise she and her alleged brother Andrew, would have been born less than 7 months apart. She would also be sharing the name of her sister Mary (Polly) who married Reuben Slaughter. There is no accounting in Ms. Dayton's book of Mary’s siblings as listed by Thomas Clark: Sarah, Dominick, James or Thomas.
SOURCE 3: "The Donnally Family, History and Genealogy of Pioneers," which appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail in 1934.
My final source, is a long article, but it corroborates Ruth Woods Dayton’s account, stating that Col. Andrew DONNALLY Sr. had six children, 4 daughters and 2 sons as follows:
Mary (Polly) DONNALLY=Reuben Slaughter, August Co., VA 8 Apr 1791
Sally DONNALLY=Samuel Henderson, Kanawha Co., VA 1793
Jane DONNALLY=Henry Skiles, Kanawha Co., VA 1801
Katherine DONNALLY=Capt. John Wilson, 1803
Charles DONNALLY, died young
Andrew DONNALLY, Jr., =Marjory VanBibber 31 May 1802
The article also goes on to speculate that Col. Andrew DONNALLY, Sr. possibly had other family members near him. It goes on to hypothesize that he probably descended from DONNALLYs from Augusta Co., VA, who had come from Northern Ireland with him, around 1750 or before. Both Andrew DONNALLY Sr. and Jr. were both mentioned in the will of one of these DONNALLYs, a Charles DONNALLY [will dated Feb 15, 1779], which is a strong connection. Unfortunately, there was no relationship mentioned between Charles and Andrew, except that the two Andrews were his executors. My current guess, is that among these Augusta DONNALLYs is the ancestor of our Mary DONALLY, Thomas Clark’s grandmother. Which means she still may be related to Col. Andrew DONNALLY, Sr., even though she may not be his daughter.
Julie, as you can see, I’ve been accumulating information for about 5 years now, without anything truly definitive. Other than the census information, I don’t know how accurate any of the above accounts are because they are all secondary sources. Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated. I would be happy to send you a copy of the above newspaper article, or any other information if you would like. They all need to be corroborated with vital statistics and more conclusive evidence than I currently have. Computerization has made much more arcane information available than was possible in Thomas Clark’s time. Which means it may be possible to pinpoint what he could not. As far as the ATKESON's go, I have a large database now, but very little about the ancestors of John ATKESON. I am assuming you are talking about the husband of Mary DONALLY.
My doubts are noted with the greatest respect for this family and the tireless efforts of Thomas Clark to record his findings. Without them, we wouldn’t have anything. Although we might not be related as you originally thought, we may be related a couple of generations later. Maybe Ed can help. I would appreciate his email along with those of the Lewises, which you offered. I would also love the website addresses you mentioned about the DONNALLY family members.
Thanks; I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Best regards, Brian in Brooklyn
BriDConley@aol.com
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