Abney, William H.

From collection Member List

Abney, William H.
Ordnance officer (Unfinished Catalogue). Ordnance Sergeant, Co. K, 2nd South Carolina Artillery (roster).

William Henry Abney.  Born June 21, 1837, Edgefield SC. Preparatory work at Newberry Academy. Initiated at Iota Chapter, Centre College, Kentucky, 1856. Transferred to Indiana Asbury October 1856, although resident in town during the previous academic term. Legate (installing officer) and first chapter secretary. Departed during the disturbance of 1856. Read law in Danville KY 1857, then Edgefield SC; admitted to bar in SC 1858. Private, Edgefield Rifles, January 1861 (probably Co. C, 1st South Carolina, Provisional Army). Ordnance sergeant, 2nd South Carolina Artillery through the end of the war.  Practiced law in Cincinnati then Elizaville, KY. Elected county judge. Delegate to the Fraternity's 1870 convention. Suffered mental breakdown in 1870s; resident in asylum, Lexington KY, for the remainder of his life. Learned several languages, wrote songs and sermons, and otherwise lived the life of a gentleman but refused to work due, apparently, to what he believed was his fragile mental state. Wrote three articles in The Phi Gamma Delta of 1912 on Iota and Lambda chapters. Died December 7, 1915 in Elizaville, Kentucky. Obituary in The Phi Gamma Delta, February 1916, p.435. Buried in Elizaville Cemetery, Fleming County.

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Legate to the Lambda Chapter at Asbury (DePauw) in June 1856.  Initiation chapter is Center 1858), affiliated with Lambda Chpater as a Founder of the chapter.
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