The Roanoker - March/April 2021 - 11

COURTESY OF NELSON HARRIS

earning $12 per month. By 18, Angell
moved to Roanoke and obtained a job in
a brickyard, always saving his money and
eventually making his way into varied,
small business enterprises. By the time
Boone had arrived, Angell, now 46, was a
respected member of Roanoke's wealthiest
and most prominent business class, a truly
self-made man with a wife, family and large
home on Mountain Avenue.
Angell's interests involved the Colonial
National Bank, Liberty Trust Company,
Roanoke Iron Works and several
manufacturing companies. Angell's neat
appearance of a receding hairline and welltrimmed mustache belied
At left: a man who had risen from
The Day and Night poverty, forgone higher
Bank Building was
Shenandoah Life education and knew the
Insurance Company's physical and psychological
first location.
rigors required for success.
Below: Thus, on a cool Sunday
Robert H. Angell
helped start afternoon in the late
Shenandoah Life winter of 1914, Angell
in 1914.
sat in Boone's apartment
just three blocks from
his own home and brought into being the
Shenandoah Life Insurance Company. Both
envisioned the possibilities, as no one else
in the city was launching a homegrown life
insurance company.
The first step Angell took was to assemble
a group of local businessmen to confer with
Boone. The agreement was that Boone
would operate as the Colonial Organization
Corporation, promoting the sale of 50,000
shares of stock at $20 par value. Boone's
commission on each share of stock was $5, a
rather high premium. When sufficient funds
were raised, Boone's corporation would
hand over the funds to the Shenandoah Life
Insurance Company. Boone and his agents
would then depart, leaving the locals to
conduct the respectable enterprise.
Shenandoah Life Insurance Company
was chartered on December 23, 1914, by
the State Corporation Commission. Those
who lent their name to the venture were
notable men from Roanoke and Southwest
Virginia that included a future governor,
bank presidents, real estate developers and a
congressman.
As Boone and his men sold stock,
Angell and others were busy organizing the

company, spending long hours researching
policies, insurance practices and procedures
and methods of investing. Their labor
was intensive, often frustrating and never
mediocre. With Angell at the helm, all were
giving their best.
The same could not be said about Boone
and his men. The first to notice was the
company's secretary William Andrews, who
shared his concerns with Angell. The two
men began keeping a keener eye on Boone's
agents and noticed a significant drop in
sales as compared to the first few months.
Sales reports were missing or contained
only partial information, and Boone offered
little, if any, explanation. Andrews and
Angell decided to investigate and hired a
man with whom Andrews was familiar,
a stenographer at the Norfolk & Western
Railway by the name of Fred C. Collings.
Collings had been around the railroad for
many years, working with payroll shipments
and dealing with many who had succumbed

to their base natures when delivering
payroll, ferreting them out and handing
them over to his superiors. He was just the
man needed to conduct an investigation
with effective discretion.
Within a few weeks, Collings revealed
that Boone and his men were selling
stock, but not in accord with company
policy. They were selling fractional shares,
shares to persons who had no intention
of paying, bartering and trading shares,
altering shares, and taking other liberties.
The most popular scheme used by Boone
was the promise of a choice price for life
insurance once policies were written. Some
stock buyers were promised positions in the

company from financial agents to general
counsels to medical examiners.
As the investigation continued, the
situation worsened. Boone and his agents,
ignoring the reprimands of Angell and
Andrews, had found more devious means
to peddle stock. Licensed to conduct
business only in Virginia, Boone's Colonial
Organization Corporation had sold stock
in at least six states using altered forms
and on a deferred payment basis. Pressure
mounted. Stockholders wanted dividends,
the public wanted the launch of the
company and the actual writing of policies
and others were looking to be hired.
Angell and Andrews were doing
everything to control the chaos and maintain
a proper business reputation for the fledgling
company befitting their reputations. Their
valiant efforts had limited success.
Angell learned of one particular agent
who was selling stock for an illicit profit and
confronted the agent at Shenandoah's office.
Angell was brutal in his candor as he laid
out for the agent his knowledge of the man's
activity. While Angell spoke, the agent
withdrew a pistol from his desk, pointed it
at the company president and threatened to
pull the trigger. Months of frustration, hard
work, long hours and utter disdain for Boone
and his men coursed through Angell's five
foot, 10-inch frame as he looked at the gun
amid insults and insubordination. Knowing
not whether the agent would actually
shoot, Angell threw a right upper cut that
shattered the agent's jaw, propelled him
backwards against the wall and dropped him
unconscious to the floor. Angell, the former
bricklayer, had had enough. The agent was
carried to Lewis-Gale Hospital and spent
seven weeks recovering.
Angell and the directors promptly
dismissed Boone, all agreeing not to litigate
but to rectify any of Boone's activities
through their own personal wealth to avoid
public attention. In time, the directors
recovered their losses. Such was the birth of
the Shenandoah Life Insurance Company.
Boone packed his bags and took a train
to New York. His agents did the same, but
one agent heading north could not resist
pawning some remaining shares of stock
left in his coat pocket to 36 unsuspecting
Catholic priests as he left the state. I

NELSON HARRIS is a former mayor of Roanoke and author of a dozen books on the region's history. He is the minister at Heights Community Church in Roanoke and a past
president of the Historical Society of Western Virginia.
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