Husband Hon. Daniel Agnew 1 2 3 4
Born: 5 Jan 1809 - Trenton, Mercer Co, NJ 5
Christened:
Died: 9 Mar 1902 - Beaver, Beaver Co, PA
Buried:
Father: Dr. James Agnew, M.D. ( - ) 4 6
Mother: Sarah B. Howell ( - ) 6
Marriage: 4 Jul 1831 5
• Additional Image: Hon. Daniel Agnew.
• Biographical Sketch: from History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Chicago: A. Warner & Co., Publishers, 1888).
To read this brief biographical sketch of his life and career, click here.
• Biographical Sketch: from Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 (New York: Atlantic Publishing & Engraving Co., 1889).
To read this brief biographical sketch of his life and career, click here.
Wife Elizabeth Moore 5 7 8 9
Born: Abt 1809
Christened:
Died: 1 Oct 1888 9
Buried:
Father: Hon. Robert Moore (1777/1778-1831) 7 8 10
Mother: Mary Stibbs ( - ) 7 11
Children
1 M [Unk] Agnew 12
Born:
Christened:
Died: Bef 1888
Buried:
2 F Mary S. Agnew 3
Born:
Christened:
Died: 14 Dec 1874 3
Buried:
Spouse: Col. John McPherrin Sullivan (1822-1899) 13
Marr: 10 Jun 1873 3
3 M Hon. Franklin Howell Agnew 6 14 15
Born: 6 Apr 1842 - Beaver, Beaver Co, PA 14 15
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Nancy K. Lauck ( - ) 16
Marr: 16 Jul 1885 17
4 M Robert M. Agnew 12
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
5 F Amanda Agnew 9 18
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Rev. Walter Brown ( - ) 12 18
6 F Sarah H. Agnew 9 12
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: David Minis ( -1862) 19 20
Spouse: Hon. Henry Hice (1834-1905) 21 22 23 24
Marr: 25 Jul 1877 20 25
General Notes: Husband - Hon. Daniel Agnew
Hon. Daniel Agnew is a Pennsylvanian only by adoption and life-long residence. He was born in Trenton, NJ, January 5, 1809. Daniel Agnew was educated at the Western University, in Pittsburgh, and studied law under Henry Baldwin and W. W. Fetterman, two distinguished attorneys of that city. In the spring of 1829 he was admitted to the bar, and at once opened an office in the city. His success not satisfying his expectations, he repaired to Beaver in the summer of the same year, and soon built up a lucrative practice from which it was impossible as a young attorney to break away. Mr. Agnew gave special attention, in his practice, to the matter of land titles, and soon acquired both reputation and patronage in that line. His recent publication, "Settlements and Land Titles of Northwest Pennsylvania," is the legitimate outgrowth of that study and practice. He was an active and efficient member of the constitutional convention in 1837, and drew up the amendment offered by his coadjutor, John Dickey, known as the Dickey amendment, regulating the appointment and tenure of the judiciary. In June, 1851, he was appointed president judge of the Seventeenth district, embracing Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties. In the following October the people ratified the choice by electing him for a term of ten years. In 1861 he was reelected without opposition.
During the war of the rebellion. Judge Agnew rendered efficient service to the Government. He was chairman of the committee of public safety. He wrote a careful and elaborate address on the "National Constitution in Its Adaptation to a State of War," which became a standard for Secretary Stanton and other prominent public men. Its publication led to his unsought nomination and election by the Republicans, as judge of the supreme court of the state, in 1863, to be the successor of Chief Justice Lowrie.
In his new position on the supreme bench, he had ample opportunity not only to test, practically, the sentiments he had held and inculcated as a private individual, but, what was more important, to throw his judicial influence in favor of the state, whose war governor, A. G. Curtin, had been under some restraint by the divided opinions, and, in some cases, anti-union sentiments, of the chief bench. In 1873 he became chief justice of the state, and held the position until January, 1879. In permitting him to retire from the bench in that year, the state lost from its supreme court one of the strongest members and best judicial minds that body ever possessed.
Politically, Judge Agnew began with the National Republican party, being a supporter of the Henry Clay theory of tariff protection versus free trade. In 1832–33 he joined the Whig party just formed, and remained with it till its dissolution, in 1854. He violently opposed the Know-Nothing movement, in 1854, and two years later assisted in the organization of the Republican party, with which he has since been identified. The degree of Doctor of Laws has been conferred upon him, first by Washington College and next by Dickinson. Though rapidly approaching his eighth decade, he still retains a quick and elastic step, and the clear and active use of his faculties. While the law has been his special field of labor, his tongue and pen have been ready and eloquent upon literary, political and historical subjects. [HBC 1888, 158]