Isaac Abbe
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Isaac Abbe |
Isaac Abbe was born October 31, 1753, in Windham, Windham Co., CT, and died after 1788. He was the son of Isaac Abbe of Windham, Windham Co., CT, and Eunice Church of Connecticut. Unknown wife. Isaac and wife were married about 1770. Isaac and wife had at least three children:
TIMELINE Isaac Abbe was born October 31, 1753, in Windham, Windham Co., CT. Isaac and wife were married about 1770. Isaac Abbe served in the Revolutionary War. One of the records provides a possibility why the Abbey family in Durham Co., Canada West was part of the "disconnected lines" of Abbe/Abbey. Was he a deserter? Third Regiment (General Putnam), 5th Company (Captain Knowlton): Isaac Abbe (listed as a fifer) Enlisted May 1, 1775 and Discharged December 16, 1775. Participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Captain Nathaniel Wales' Company: Isaac Abbe Drafted August 24, 1777 and Deserted September 3, 1777. Captain Abner Robinson's Company: Isaac Abbe listed as a soldier. Served in the State of Rhode Island October 1777. This may have been a different Isaac Abbe (the one born in 1754). It is surmised that brothers Nathaniel (age 28) and Isaac Abbey (age 27), along with their sister Dorcas Abbey (age 26) and their nephew Clement Neff (age about 8) came to Northumberland Co., Ontario, Canada West from New York about 1797. They were some of the pioneering settlers of Durham Co., Ontario, Canada. If this is accurate, the Abbey ancestry can be connected through their father Isaac Abbe all the way back to John Abbe, born about 1587 in West Halton, Lincolnshire, England. His son, John Abbe, Jr. of Norwich, Norfolk Co., England emigrated to the United States about 1635 and married Mary Loring in 1635 at Wenham, Essex Co., MA.
Leslie Wilson of Canada has provided the following information. The 1851 Charles and Oliver were sons of Isaac Abbey & Lucinda Bradley, and grandsons of Nathaniel Abbey b 1773/74 NY d 1825/26 Hope & Mary____ b Apr 11 1777 d Mar 29 1869. If you recall, Lucinda Bradley was the daughter of Dorcas Abbey (believed to be a sister of Nathaniel #1 and his brother Isaac) and Oliver Bradley. Isaac Abbey, brother of the 1773/74 - 1825/26 Nathaniel Abbey, had no surviving issue. Lucinda & her husband Isaac did not help matters because they named the boys, Charles Oliver Abbey and Oliver Nathaniel Abbey!!! It has been argued that Isaac Abbey, husband of Anne, was the father of Dorcas Abbey-Bradley and Nathaniel Abbey #1. This is possible, but there are many circumstantial factors that argue equally that he was their brother. 1) The Abbey men were not long lived - average age of death (and yes, I removed the ones who were killed in the Civil War to come up with this) - about 50. 2) In the 1790s, very few men over the age of 50, without a house-full of strong sons and daughters between the ages of 14 and 21, took up homesteading in Upper Canada. 3) When Isaac died sometime between March of 1813 and March of 1814, it seems he died intestate - and the property did not pass to Nathaniel Abbey Sr. but rather to David King Bradley and Nathaniel Abbey Jr. If Nathaniel #1 had been Isaac's son, by British law it would have passed to the son. But Isaac died - without heirs it seems - so it passed to the two eldest male heirs of Dorcas Abbey-Bradley and Nathaniel Abbey, they being David King Bradley and Nathaniel Abbey Jr. 4) I suspect Isaac died of a disease that entered local lore as the Spotted Plague. It seems to have affected only those in the prime of life - two teenage boys died, everybody else was in their forties and fifties. Most were male. This was not small pox - that had swept through the area in 1811, the people were familiar with it and of those who remained, most had acquired an immunity to it. This disease was especially virulent - death occurred within 7 days of contact, the victim remained lucid until the end - the body swelled and large purple spots, like bruises, appeared all over the body within 24 hrs of death. Believe it or not, I was able to find a specialist in weird epidemic diseases (he once worked for the Atlanta Centre for Disease Control) who agreed to take on the project of finding out what this plague was. It only affected those living in Hope Twp, the only exception was a man from Hamilton Twp who had been called to the death bed of one of the victims to notarize the will. I expected Mr Lamb would take at least a month or two to work out a possible cause - he came back in less than 48 hours with the answer - a disease endemic to flying squirrels, carried from them to humans by lice. The first case appeared in early February - by the end of April, it had petered out. When I asked him how certain he was about this being the cause, his reply was: "99 percent, and you can quote me". The scenario is that the men were out cutting down trees (this still is winter time work in southern Ontario), the boys found a downed tree with a litter of young flying squirrels, took them home and divided them up amongst their friends. The lice on the squirrels spread from person to person. The disease cannot be passed by sputum or touching feces or urine of an infected person or squirrel - it must be introduced into the blood stream by an infected louse, and only a louse, not a flea or mosquito. Anyway - I digress, although that is the sort of stuff my book is about, not the genealogy. The genealogies are needed to discover the whys and wherefores of the movements and interactions of this 1793-1813 group of people.
Leslie Hello, Donna. |