Biography of William O. ABNEY, Fayette County, West Virginia This file was submitted by Cheryl McCollum, E-mail address: This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II pg. 55-56 WILLIAM O. ABNEY. Men who have attained to real success in the business world do not admit of the existence of the quality known as luck. Long years of experience have convinced them that prosperity and position come only through the medium of persistent application of intelligent methods that require time for their development. To the highest order of organizing sense and executive attainments must be added the confidence of the public and concise and intimate knowledge of the field to be occupied, the latter only to be attained by gradual and well-timed approaches. Sudden and phenomenal rise of affluence and independence is most uncommon and frequently is followed by failure. Certain it is that none would intimate that William O. Abney, president of the Abney-Barnes Company and of the Union Trust Company of Charleston, owes his success to any lucky chance or circumstance. His career has been on of slow and steady advancement. For many years he has occupied a recognized position in business and financial life, and continues to maintain a high standard of principles, which, perhaps, is one of the chief reasons for his success. Mr. Abney was born at Richmond, Virginia, and his boy-hood days were spent upon a farm in Augusta County. After spending a few years in the coal fields of West Virginia he came to Charleston, when a young man of twenty-two years of age, and there he accepted a position as a traveling salesman with the firm of Arnold, Abney & Company the Abney of this firm being his cousin, Mr. F. W. Abney. This was one of the old established mercantile houses of Charleston. The business had been founded, shortly after the close of the Civil war, by Mr. E. S. Arnold as a modest retail establishment. With the admission of Mr. F. W. Abney into the partnership the firm name was changed to Arnold & Abney. Still later Mr. E. A. Barnes became a partner, and the firm name of Arnold, Abney & Company, was adopted and the business placed upon a wholesale basis exclusively. Some years later, Mr. Arnold having retired from the business, the name was again changed, becoming then, Abney, Barnes & Company. This partnership was subsequently incorporated as Abney-Barnes Company, with Mr. F. W. Abney, president, Mr. W. O. Abney, vice president, and Mr. E. A. Barnes, treasurer. Mr. F. W. Abney retired from the business in January, 1906, at which time Mr. W. O. Abney was elected president, which office he has since continuously held. The Abney-Barnes Company now enjoys the distinction of being the largest wholesale dry goods house in the Kanawha Valley. For several years past Mr. Abney has not been actively identified with the management of the business, he still retains the presidency, and in matters of importance pertaining thereto his counsel and advice are always sought. When the Union Trust Company of Charleston was organized, in 1913, Mr. Abney was chosen as its president, and he has since been actively identified with the growth and development of this institution into one of the strong banking establishments of the state. The Union Trust Company opened its doors for business, May 5, 1913, with a capital of $500,000, and a surplus of $100,000. The ninth annual statement, issued May 5, 1922, showed combined resources in excess of $4,964,000. It is extremely doubtful if any other bank in West Virginia can show such a substantial growth in so short a period of time. The Union Trust Company owns and occupies one of the finest bank and office buildings in the state, a thoroughly modern and imposing structure of thirteen stories, at the junction of Kanawha and Capitol streets, in Charleston. In addition to the interests already mentioned Mr. Abney is president of the Charleston Manufacturing Company, is a director in the Charleston Industrial Corporation at Nitro, and has oil and coal holdings. In political matters Mr. Abney is a stanch adherent to the principles of Jeffersonian democracy, and at the national convention of his party at Baltimore in 1912, which nominated Woodrow Wilson for the presidency, he served as a delegate. Mr. Abney is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner. He is also a life member of Charleston Lodge of Elks. Having for fifteen consecutive years represented as a traveling salesman the firm of which he is now president, he still retains his membership in the United Commercial Travelers Association, and recalls many pleasant incidents of his long service as a "Knight of the Grip." The record of his success is but another confirmation of the fact that opportunity is open to all who are willing to grasp it, and honorably and persistently bend their efforts towards the attainment of an ideal.