James Abbot

Born	1768-02-22
Select Board
In Office	1797 - 1798
Town Clerk
In Office	1797 - 1798
Preceded by	Oliver Crosby
Succeeded by	Jacob Richardson
Representative to the General Court
In Office	1803 - 1803
Preceded by	Jonathan Bowers
Succeeded by	Oliver Crosby
Spouses	Mehitable Holt (m. 1791-02-20 )

James Abbot was born on February 22, 1768, the son of Joseph Abbot of Andover, New Hampshire. He settled in Billerica as a merchant, and on February 20, 1791 he married Mehitable Holt there. Their children, recorded in Billerica, were Sophronia (1791), James (1793), Joseph (1795) and Daniel (1797), followed by Mehitable, Isaac, a second Isaac, John and Clarissa, baptized between 1799 and 1808.

He was the town's town clerk for one year, 1797, and a selectman the same year, and in 1803 he was Billerica's representative. As a justice of the peace he took the acknowledgments of his neighbors' deeds, among them Benjamin Danforth's sale of his farm to Ami French in 1805 and Isaac Pollard's sale of part of "the Kidder farm" to Josiah Richardson in 1807. When Deacon Joshua Abbot died in August 1807, James Abbot was the executor of his will, which left the town a clock for the meeting house and a fund for teaching church music.

He died, without a will, in the summer of 1810, at the age of 42. His widow Mehitable declined to administer the estate, and on August 31, 1810 the court appointed Joseph Locke, with Josiah Crosby Jr. among the sureties. The inventory, taken on September 20 by Blaney Abbot, Josiah Crosby Jr. and Jeremiah Patten, found no land but two pews in the meeting house, worth $110, and a well furnished house: a clock, a desk and bookcase, mahogany and maple dining tables, card tables, looking glasses, decanters and wine glasses, besides a chaise, an ox wagon, a cow and a horse. His books show the work he did for the town: three volumes of the laws of Massachusetts, a "Justices assistant," a "Clerk's Magazine," a "Probate Directory," the "American Justice," a "Town Officer," the constitutions of several states, two volumes of the "Military Mentor," and several music books.

The estate came to $679.05 against claims of $1,450.01, most of them notes held by John Parker and by Josiah Crosby Jr. and Zaccheus Shed. In October 1810 the court allowed his widow $300 of the household goods and found the estate insolvent, naming John Walker of Burlington and Jeremiah Patten commissioners to examine the claims.

James Abbot

James Abbot

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