In 1819 area Presbyterians organized the Kanawha Presbyterian Church, holding meetings both in Charleston and at “Col. David Ruffner's Meeting House at Kanawha Salines.” On December 13, 1840, this building was dedicated on a riverfront lot that Colonel Ruffner, who sponsored its construction, had donated.
A typical brick meetinghouse, the building has two front doors, one for each sex, with windows directly above lighting a rear gallery. A square belfry with louvered rectangular openings and pyramidal roof straddles the ridge of the front gable. Tradition has it that Colonel Ruffner, attending meetings of the General Assembly in Richmond when the church was built, was dissatisfied with the construction when he returned and ordered one of the walls to be taken down and rebuilt. There may be some truth in the story: front and right side walls are laid in Flemish bond, the left wall in an informal bond, with sporadic rows of alternating stretchers and headers. The rear Sunday school addition dates from 1933.