Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/25

ABBOTT.ABBOTT. ABBOTT, Benjamin Vaughan, lawyer, was born in Boston, Mass., June 4, 1830; the eldest son of Jacob and Harriet (Vaughan) Abbott: grandson of the Rev. Jacob and Betsey (Abbot) Abbott, and of Charles Vaughan of Hallowell, Me., and a descendant of George Abbot of Andover. He was graduated from the University of the city of New York in 1850, and from Harvard law school in 1852. In 1853 he was married to Elizabeth, daughter of John Titcomb. He practised law for a number of years in New York, and after a time devoted himself chiefly to the compilation of law books and digests of the law. In this work he was assisted by his brother, Austin Abbott. Among his many legal works, which are considered of great value by his profession, are "Reports of Decisions of Circuit and District Courts of the United States," in two volumes; a revision of the United States statutes, on which he was engaged for three years, and which he succeeded in condensing from sixteen volumes to a single octavo, his collaborators in this work being Charles P. James and Victor C. Barringer; and a new edition of the "United States Digest," which had grown to a library of unwieldy size. This, in six years, he compressed into the pages of thirteen volumes, and followed it after 1879 with annual supplementary volumes. He also compiled "A Digest of Decisions in Corporations from 1860 to 1870," and "A Treatise on the Courts of the United States and their Practice," 2 vols; "Dictionary of Terms in American and English Jurisprudence," 2 vols.; "National Digest," 4 vols., which embraced all important decisions of the U. S. supreme circuit, district and claims courts; and edited and revised the fourth American edition of "Addison on Contracts." He collected his anonymous contributions to periodicals under the title "Judge and Jury," and issued in 1880 a juvenile in the Chautauqua reading circle series entitled "Travelling Law School and Famous Trials." In 1889 he published "The Patent Laws of All Nations," 2 vols., and edited Brodie's American and English Patent Cases," 3 vols. He died in Brooklyn, N. Y., Feb. 17, 1890. ABBOTT, Charles Conrad, naturalist, was born at Trenton, N.J., June 4, 1843; son of Timothy and Susan (Conrad) Abbott; grandson of Joseph and Anne (Rickey) Abbott, and a descendant of John and Anne (Mauleverer) Abbott, settlers, from England, in New Jersey, 1684. He was educated at Trenton academy and graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1865, but never entered into the practice of the profession. In 1872 his attention was called to local archæology and having an inherited taste he began to collect and study the handiwork of the ancient native races of the Delaware river valley, and having made his scientific headquarters at the Peabody museum, Cambridge, Mass., was appointed a non-resident assistant at that institution, which office he held, 1876-89. On his removal in 1874 to the homestead farm of his family near Trenton, N.J., he entered systematically into biological studies which he had previously irregularly pursued. He devoted himself to accumulating what became the "Abbott Collection" of Eastern North American antiquities, numbering more than 20,000 specimens, composed principally of stone implements used by the prehistoric races, now at the Peabody museum and which was the outcome of fifteen years' work. He announced the discovery of Paleolithic man in America in 1876, and his claim was violently opposed by all the geologists in the country, but the view as originally set forth by Mr. Abbott became generally accepted by competent authorities, both in Europe and America. In 1889 he was appointed curator of the museum of American archæology of the University of Pennsylvania. As early as 1859 he contributed brief zoological sketches and then more elaborate essays to periodicals in England and the United States, and other articles purely literary, his magazine work covering more than one hundred titles from 1870 to 1895. He devoted himself wholly to literary work from 1872 and is the author of: "The Stone Age in New Jersey" (1876); "Primitive Industry or Illustrations of the Handwork in Stone, Bone and Clay of the Native Races of the Northern Atlantic Seaboard" (1881); "A Naturalist's Rambles About Home" (1884); "Upland and Meadow" (1886); "Wasteland Wanderings" (1887); "Days Out of Doors" (1889); "Outings at Odd Times" (1890); "Recent Rambles" (1893); "Travels in a Tree Top" (1894); "The Birds About Us" (1895); "A Colonial Wooing" (novel, 1895); "Bird Land Echoes" (1896); "Notes of the Night" (1896); "When the Century Was New" (1896); "The Freedom of the Fields" (1897); "The Hermit of Nottingham " (1897); "Clear Skies and Cloudy" (1898; "In Nature's Realm" (1900). ABBOTT, David, pioneer, was born at Brookfield, Mass., Dec. 5, 1765. After being educated at Yale college he went to Rome, N.Y., where for several years he practised law. In 1798 he removed to Ohio, where he took up his residence and figured prominently in public affairs as sheriff of Trumbull county, which in those early days comprised the whole of the Western reserve. He was a member of the convention which met to frame the state constitution in 1802; and a member of the state legislature. In that body he served many terms, and was a presidential elector in 1812. He was fond of pioneer life, delighted in the very wildness of the country, was an enthusi-