Constable Silas Nance, Ohley, West Virginia

This site commemorates Constable Silas Frank Nance, a local lawman who died in the line of duty in the Ohley community of Kanawha County. Nance was at home when he received word that a man had shot several people in the area. He went looking for the suspect, tracked him to the nearby community of Eskdale, and was shot and killed before he could make the arrest.

The gunman fled. Constable positions like Nance's were the front line of law enforcement in rural West Virginia, often held by men with minimal backup and no dispatch to call. His memorial here stands as a reminder of how routine community protection could turn fatal in the hollows and coal towns of the Kanawha Valley, where geographic isolation and limited resources defined policing well into the twentieth century.