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Permanent LinkRepresentative Wallace Gordon Agnew View All Years
HON. W. G. AGNEW
MR. SPEAKER—Your committee appointed to prepare a memorial to properly commemorate the life, character, and public service of the Hon. W. G. Agnew, of Clarke county, beg leave to submit the following report:
Wallace G. Agnew, one of the enterprising and representative citizens of Osceola, was a native of Ohio, born In Guernsey county, July 10, 1839, the youngest of a family of eight children of John and Mary (White) Agnew, natives of the Keystone state.
When he was thirteen years old he left Ohio and came to Iowa, where he passed his youth and attained manhood. He received a good education, attending in Ohio the common schools of his native county. He learned the marble-cutter’s trade, at which he worked until the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion. In May, 1861, he enrolled at Knoxville, Marion county, Iowa, was mustered into the United States service June 10, 1861, at Keokuk, Iowa, in Company B, Third Regiment, Iowa Infantry, for three years service. He participated in the battles of Blue Mills, Missouri, and Shiloh, losing his right arm at the latter battle. He was discharged in July, 1862, and returned to Iowa.
In November, 1863, he was appointed Deputy United States Marshal of the Fourth District, and was stationed at Grinnell, at that time the terminus of the Rock Island railroad, and served nineteen months, when the post at Grinnell was abandoned. He was then employed as traveling salesman for a marble company until 1867, when he located in Osceola, Clarke county, and embarked in the grocery business in company with E. Atkins. In 1869 he was appointed postmaster at Osceola, a position he filled acceptably until July, 1885. In the fall of 1885 he was nominated and elected to represent Clarke county in the state legislature, and served his constituents faithfully in the Twenty-first and Twenty-second General Assemblies.
In 1867, he was married to Miss Nellie Inglefield, daughter of E. Inglefield, who, with their three sons and three daughters survives him.
Therefore Be It Resolved, By the House of Representatives of the Fortieth General Assembly, that in the death of Hon. W. G. Agnew, this state has lost a loyal citizen, a man of fine ideals and public spirit, and this House, by this resolution, tenders its sympathy to the family that survives him.
And Be It Further Resolved, that these resolutions be spread upon the Journal and an engrossed copy sent to the surviving members of the family.
D. M. GIBSON,
JNO. A. STOREY,
W. J. COLBERT,
Committee.
Adopted April 12, 1923.