Cabell County, West Virginia    Biography of Frank AGNEW

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@trellis.net>, July 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 174


FRANK AGNEW. For over ten years Frank Agnew has
been enrolled among the active business men of Huntington.
His hat store is one of the few successful specialty shops in
the retail district, and in recent years he has established a
factory producing a widely known line of men's headgear,
sold in his own store and through the jobbing trade.

Mr. Agnew was born at Bethel, Connecticut, July 10,
1870. His father, also named Frank Agnew, was born at
Ogdensburg, New York, May 3, 1836, was reared there and
as a young man went to Connecticut, was married in Ca-
naan of that state, where he followed the trade of carpen-
ter for a number of years, and after his removal to Bethel
was a successful building contractor. He was a local leader
in the democratic party, held a number of offices, and mani-
fested hardly less interest in the Congregational Church, of
which he was a devout member. He was affiliated with the
Masonic Order. Frank Agnew, Sr., who died at Bethel,
Connecticut, December 1, 1918, married Mary Allen, who
was born in May, 1841, in Northern Ireland and came to
America when a girl. She died at Bethel in October, 1899,
mother of one daughter and two sons. The daughter, Jen-
nie, born in 1863, was a teacher in the Institution for the
Blind at New York City, where she died in 1903. The two
sons are Frank and George W., the latter an employe in
the hat factory at Huntington.

Frank Agnew attended public schools in Bethel until he
was eighteen, and his first business experience outside of
school was in a grocery store at Bethel, where he remained
one year. For two years he was in the feed and coal busi-
ness conducted by his uncle, Chauncey Donalds, and then
for two years was road salesman for hay and grain over
the State of Connecticut. In this line of business he then
extended his interests to dealing in hay on a commission
basis, and he shipped hay from the West to Eastern points
until 1911. In the meantime, from 1900 to 1911, his home
was at Orange, New Jersey.

Mr. Agnew came to Huntington in January, 1911, and at
once engaged in the retail hat business. His present store
is the outgrowth of the business he established more than
ten years ago, and is located at 825-827 Fourth Avenue.
Soon after engaging in the retail hat business he installed a
facility for reblocking hats, and that led to the establish-
ment of his factory for the making of men's hats. This is
the largest hat manufacturing business between Philadel-
phia and Louisville. The factory is at 831 Court Street.

Mr. Agnew is a director in the Planters Tobacco Ware-
house of Huntington. He is a republican, a trustee in the
Congregational Church, is a member of Huntington Lodge
No. 313, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and
Huntington Chamber of Commerce. He owns some real es-
tate in Huntington, including his substantial residence in a
restricted district at 549 Adams Avenue.

In October, 1915, Mr. Agnew married at Huntington Miss
Viola M. Durant, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Durant,
now deceased. Her father had been a hatter in Bethel,
Connecticut. Mr. Agnew had the misfortune to lose his
wife in June, 1916.