Abbott Family
About the days of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers four brothers by the name of Abbott came from England to America. Religious persecutions drove them from their native land, for they were of the same faith of the Pilgrim Fathers. It is not known whether they had families or not, neither is it known just where they located, but it was somewhere on the coast of the New England colonies. We have no account of them or their descendants down to Bancroft Abbott, who appeared on the "stage of action" some four generations later. He was born in Massachusetts or Connecticut about 1760. Whom or when he married we cannot learn, but we know that he had a family of seven children. Thomas, the eldest of the seven, was born in Connecticut about 1785. When a young man he went to Vermont. Here about 1813 he married Anna Powers. They reared a family of four children. viz., William, Martha, Mary, and George E. He spent the most of his life in the State of Vermont, but died in Georgetown, N. Y., about 1857.
Of his family William was born in Vermont. Later in life he came to Ohio, but being of an adventurous and pioneer disposition he sought the newer and wilder sections of the country. He next went to Western Illinois, remained there until after the Rebellion, when he sought a home in the far West, and finally located in Wyoming Territory, where he now resides.
Martha, the eldest daughter, came to Sidney in 1847, and is the wife of James V. Wilkin, of Sidney.
Mary came to Sidney in 1848. She is the wife of Guy C. Kelsey, of Sidney.
George E., the youngest of the family, was born in Newberry, Vt., in 1824. Came to Ohio in 1845, and located in Sidney, where he engaged in the cabinet business. He married Harriet Jackson (a daughter of Edward Jackson, one of the pioneers of Orange Township) in 1849. In 1850, when the gold excitement was raging in California, he left his wife and infant child, and, in company with a number of others from Sidney, started across the plains to seek their fortunes, but, like thousands of others, he never realized the desire of his ambition. After spending about one year in the mines, he was taken with the typhoid fever, of which he died in October, 1851, and was buried by his mess mates, who had cared for him through his sickness. His widow still lives in Sidney with her only child, Alonzo E., who was born in Sidney January 9, 1850. He had made his home with his mother all through life. At the age of eighteen years he entered a dry-goods store as a clerk, which he followed about ten years, then for three years was a travelling salesman for manufactories in Sidney. Is now engaged in the real estate and insurance business.
From History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883