The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Abbott, Benjamin

ABBOTT, Benjamin, American revivalist: b. Long Island 1732; d. Salem, N. J., 14 Aug. 1796. A hatter's and then a farmer's apprentice, somewhat dissipated but a kind husband and father and a church-goer (whence his accounts of the pit from which he was rescued are probably dialectic), he was roused to intense conviction of sin at 33 by an itinerant Methodist preacher, joined that Church with his children and his Presbyterian wife, and became one of the most remarkable revivalists of the time, producing wonderful conversions of the most hardened, and often sending hearers into convulsions. In the Revolution the Methodists were suspected of disloyalty, and more than once he was near being mobbed; but he always preached down his assailants, once turning from their purpose a gang of a hundred soldiers. Serving for 16 years as a local preacher, from 1789 he went on various circuits, and in and in 1793 was made an elder and sent to Maryland. He carried on his duties till death despite much enfeeblement; and his career has been one of the most stirring themes for exhortation in the Church.