This is just SOME new information, which validates some things.
The James Agnew in New Albany has been linked definitively TO the Agnew family in Cincinnati. I felt that all along, but was just going on the fact that he said he was from Ohio and I have his exact birth date, 10 July 1841. The only one who matched that the best, was the family in Cincinnati. So that is definitely our James Agnew, who in 1850 was a little 8-yr-old boy in the family of an older James and wife Mary Ann. I know now for sure that the little boy there IS the one who came to New Albany after the Civil War.
I know this because, by 1880, there is a little girl, Helen, adopted INTO the family of James and Mary Ann. This little girl, it turns out, is actually the daughter of OUR James Agnew in New Albany. There are newspaper articles about him having to fight to get his daughter back, after OTHER people tried to take the little girl from him. He supposedly left her with people “for safe keeping” for awhile. Those people gave her to another woman, who wanted to keep her. James Agnew, my great grandfather, had to fight to get her back. He won. But the lady is quoted as saying, “Mrs. Oakes claims that Agnew, on account of his dissipated habits, is not a suitable person to have charge of the child, and we understand that she proposes to regain possession by law. The child is a bright, interesting little girl of about four years of age.” This was said in 1875 in the New Albany newspaper!
James Agnew had a 1st wife who died in 1874. Maybe he became a drunk after her death, I don’t know. But in 1875 he was trying to reclaim the little girl. And he did.
In AUG.1879, he married MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER, Carrie Bybee—
By 1880, the little girl HELLEN is in the home of the OLDER JAMES AGNEW IN CINCINNATI, and it says “adopted daughter”…………. So he again left her, evidently, with his DAD and family in Cincinnati……… by 1880. Maybe Carrie Bybee didn’t want her in their new marriage home. Maybe he didn’t even tell her about his first family, I don’t know.
So what I have to do is research the SAMUEL AGNEW sitting in the Cincinnati household at age 72, in 1850. He came from Pennsylvania. I have to find his beginnings in Pennsylvania or figure out who he is and where he came from.
Newspaper stories from New Albany:
New Albany Daily Ledger Standard January 8, 1875 p 4
Habeas Corpus
James Agnew filed a petition in the Circuit Court yesterday, asking the judge but now grant a writ of habeas corpus, to compel John P. Frank and Mary V. Frank to deliver up Helen E. Agnew, a child four years old, and said to be the child of James Agnew. The plaintiff charges the child is unlawfully held by Mr. and Mrs. Frank. The writ is made returnable Saturday.
New Albany Ledger Standard March 11, 1875 p 4
A Child in Dispute
Yesterday afternoon, a man named James Agnew applied at the station house for assistance from the police to enable him to recover his child from Mrs. Emma Oakes, who, he claimed, had unlawfully taken the little girl from the persons under whose protection he has left her. Officers Spence and Graham went with Agnew to the residence of Mrs. Oakes, on Upper Fifth Street, and Mrs. O. gave it up, first requesting that a picture of the little girl be taken and given her, which was done. It will be remembered that a suit was had before judge picked now, in which Agnew gained possession of the child from Mrs. Frank. Since that time, until about two weeks ago, the little girl has been under the protection of Mr. Hopkins and wife Mrs. Oakes claims that Agnew, on account of his dissipated habits, is not a suitable person to have charge of the child, and we understand that she proposes to regain possession by law. The child is a bright, interesting little girl of about four years of age.
New Albany Evening Tribune February 22, 1889 p 4
At the residence of James Agnew, 117 East Fourth street last night, a party was given in honor of his daughter’s 18th anniversary. A number of Mr. Agnew’s Grand Army friends, together with acquaintances of his daughter were present in a pleasant evening was had in feasting with musical accompaniments.
Helen Agnew
mentioned in the record of George A Johnson and Helen Agnew
Name George A Johnson
Event Type Marriage Registration
Event Date 08 Apr 1889
Event Place Floyd, Indiana, United States
Gender Male
Marriage License Date 08 Apr 1889
Marriage Place Floyd, Indiana
Spouse’s Name Helen Agnew
Spouse’s Gender Female
Officiator’s Name Chas Hutchinson
Page 388
Number of Images 1
CITING THIS RECORD
“Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XX1B-C8C : accessed 12 March 2016), George A Johnson and Helen Agnew, 08 Apr 1889; citing Floyd, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 549,334.
George and Helen had two sons, Claude and Albert, and she died in Montgomery County Kansas in 1942. There is a tree online that follows her family which has the 1880 census in Cincinnati but nothing before that.
[note from another researcher: I have a Feb 21 1871 birth date for Helen in my tree, but that is just based on the date of the birthday party, probably Feb 1871, but don’t know exact date.]
What this does, is document that our James A. Agnew in New Albany is, in fact, the little boy James, 8 yrs old, at the bottom of the page of the 1850 census, living with James and Mary Ann Agnew in Hamilton County, Ohio, and with an older Samuel Agnew, age 72, there at the same time. Because this same James and Mary Ann (Freeman) Agnew have Helen listed as an “adopted daughter” in the 1880 census. Same family. Helen is validated as actually the daughter of the younger James Agnew (from New Albany) in the newspaper articles above. So it ties him to the family in Cincinnati for sure.
His first marriage with Caroline Gross produced evidently 3 daughters: Annie (1865), Ollith Lenora (1867) and this Helen (1871). His wife, Mary Carolina, dies in 1874. He marries our great-grandmother Carrie Bybee in 1879. Helen is living with James & Mary Ann Agnew in Hamilton County, Ohio by 1880. She would have been 9 yrs old in Feb. 1880. William Robert, first child of James and Carrie in New Albany, is born in April 1880.
Doctor Grandma 