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Here is what I have on Thomas and his descendants:
First Generation
1. Thomas Abbe was born on 11 Apr 1731 in Enfield, Connecticut. He died on 1 Jun 1811 in Enfield, Connecticut.
He is unquestionably buried in Enfield although the huge
monument of a more recent family has probably obscured his grave. He wasbest known by the title of
Captain Abbe. His first enlistment noted is asCorporal in the 3d Company, 1st Regiment, May 25 to
November 22, 1758;then as Lieutenant in the 7th Company, 1st Regiment, under Captain SethKing, April
1 to December 1, 1761. (Connecticut Historical SocietyCollections, X, pages 10 and 247.) He was
commissioned captain, January1, 1777. In his "Quest of Ancestors," Mr. Alden Freeman says:That long
line of warlike Abbeys beginning with John, who came in the"Bonaventure" and settled in Salem in 1636;
his son Thomas, who settledin Enfield after Ring Phillip's War; his grandson, Lieutenant ThomasAbbey,
and his great grandson, Thomas Abbey, ensign and lieutenant inthe French and Indian Wars and
afterward captain under Washingtonthroughout the Revolutionary War, whose service I was invited
torepresent in the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati. On the Thursdayfollowing the battle of Lexington,
Thomas Abbey, on learning of thefight, procured a drum and actually drummed the people out of
themeetinghouse at Enfield, where they were gathered at their regularweekday lecture. This interesting
event was beautifully commemorated by apoem written by Benjamin F. Taylor, and published in the
Atlantic Monthlyin May, 1878, and the following is a copy of the poem:
THE CAPTAINS DRUM
In Pilgrim land, one Sabbath day,
The winter lay like sheep about
The ragged pastures mullein gray;
The April sun shone in and out,
The showers swept by in fitful
flocks, And eaves ticked fast like
mantel clocks;
And now and then a wealthy cloud
Would wear a ribbon broad and bright,
And now and then a winged crowd
Of shivering azure flash in sight.
So rainbows bend and bluebirds fly
And violets show their bits of sky.
To Enfield church throng all the town,
In quilted hood and bombazine,
In beaver hat and flaring crown,
And quaint VanDyke and Victorian;
And buttoned boys in roundabout
From calyx collars blossom out;
Bandanas wave their feeble fire,
And foot-stoves tinkle up the aisle;
A gray-haired elder leads the choir,
And girls in linsey-woolsey smile.
So back to life the beings glide
Whose very graces have ebbed and died.
One hundred years have waned, and yet
We call the roll,and not in vain,
For one whose flint-lock musket set
The echoes wild around Fort Duqnesne,
And smelled the battle's powder smoke
Ere Revolution's thunders awoke.
Lo, Thomas Abbey answers, "Here!"
Within the dull long-metre place,
That day, upon the parson's ear,
And trampling down his words of grace,
A horseman's gallop rudely beat
Along the splashed and empty street.
The rider drew his dripping rein,
And then a letter, wasp-nest gray,
That ran: "The Concord minutemen
And red-coats had a fight to-day!
To Captain Abbey this with speed."
Twelve little words to tell the deed.
The captain read, struck out for home
The old quickstep of battle born,
Slung on once more a battered drum
That bore a painted unicorn
Then right-about, as whirls a torch,
He stood before the sacred porch.
And then a murmuring of bees
Broke in upon the house of prayer;
And then a wind-song swept the trees,
And then a snarl from wolfish lair;
And then a charge of grenadiers,
And then a flight of drum-beacheers.
So drum and doctrine rudely blent,
The casements rattled strange accord;
No mortal knew what either meant;
"Twas double-grad and Holy Word,
Thus saith the drum and thus the Lord.
The captain raised so wild a rout
He drummed the congregation out.
The people gathered round amazed;
The soldier bared his head and spoke,
And every sentence burned and blazed,
As trenchant as a sabre stroke:
"Tis time to pick the flint to day,
To sling the knapsack, and away!
"The green of Lexington is red
With British redcoats, brothers' blood!
In rightful cause the earliest dead
Are always best beloved of God.
Mark time! Now let the march begin!
All bound for Boston fall right in !"
Then rub-a-dub the drum jarred on,
The throbbing role of battle beat;
"Fall in, my men!" and one by one
They rhymed the tune with heart and feet,
And so they made a Sabbath march
To glory 'neath the elm-tree arch.
The Continental line unwound
Along the Church-yard's breathless sod,
And holier grew the hallowed ground
Where Virtue slept and Valor trod,
Two hundred strong that April day
They rallied out and marched away.
Brigaded there at Bunker Hill,
Their names are writ on glories page.
The brave old captain's Sunday drill
Has drummed its way across the age.
The church around which Captain Abbey beat the long roll was completed inthe January preceding, and
stood near the present church. It was used asa church for the town until 1849, when it was bought by
the town andmoved to the west side of the street, where it now stands and has beenused as a town hall
ever since. A memorial to Captain Abbey and othersof the family is about to be erected by Mr. Alden
Freeman with his motherand sisters. The Abbey Memorial will be on the Green in Enfield, on thesite of
the church out of which Captain Abbey
drummed the congregation at the Lexington Alarm. The actual site of theold church is just in front of the
present edifice. The design calls fora marble statue on a pedestal surrounded by four marble seats in
theGreek style. On the backs of these seats are inscriptions commemoratingthe achievements of some of
the best known descendants of the Abbeyfamily, in the fields of war, literature and science. The sculptor,
Sherry E. Fry, used as a model for the face and figure for the statue ofCaptain Abbey, a daguerreotype of
his grandson, Seth Alden Abbey, takenat the same age. Daniel C. French, sculptor of the "Minute Men"
unveiledat Concord Bridge in 1875, has taken great interest in the work of Mr.Fry, and loaned him the
simple Colonial suit used for the presentation ofCaptain Abbey.
The following is an extract from a letter written by Seth Alden6 Abbey tohis son, Henry G. Abbey, dated
June 15, 1872, telling something ofThomas Abbey:
When a small boy, I was frequently at his house for a week at a time andhave heard him tell many a
thrilling tale of his hairbreadth escapes,hardships, sufferings, etc. During the French War he received
acommission as Ensign in the Colonial troops and saw considerable serviceagainst the French and Indians.
At the breaking out of the Revolution, avolunteer company was formed in his neighborhood and he was
elected their captain and they were soon ordered to join ColonelWillett's Regiment in New York. I have
heard him say, frequently, that hehad chances of promotion, often, but his men would not consent to
hisleaving them. When a boy I saw many of his old soldiers who had servedduring the war; and the
neighbors were as particular in addressing any ofthem, in giving them their title, as Corporal such a one,
or Sergeant
such a one, as they would be in addressing a General. Thomas Abbey diedin 1811, and was as anxious
for a fight with old England, which was thenmuch talked of, just before his death, as in his younger days.
He diedsuddenly with apoplexy.
Thomas married Penelope Terry on 22 Jun 1749 in Enfield, Connecticut. Penelope was born on 5 Feb 1729/1730 in Enfield, Connecticut. She died on 5 Dec 1817 in East Hartford, Connecticut.
They had the following children:
+ 2 F i. Abigail Abbe was born on 13 May 1750. She died on 22 Jun 1844.
3 M ii. Obadiah Abbe was born on 15 Jun 1752 in Enfield, Connecticut.
Obadiah married Jane McClester .
4 F iii. Penelope Abbe was born on 24 Mar 1755 in Enfield, Connecticut.
Penelope married Josiah Bicknell .
5 F iv. Mary Abbe was born on 24 Mar 1755 in Enfield, Connecticut. She died on 18 May 1759 in Enfield, Connecticut.
6 M v. Thomas Abbe was born on 22 Mar 1764 in Enfield, Connecticut.
Thomas married Ruth Bush .
7 F vi. Mary Abbe was born on 7 Jul 1766 in Enfield, Connecticut.
Mary married George Prior . George was born in East Windsor.
+ 8 M vii. Peter Abbey was born on 20 Jul 1769. He died in 1857.
9 M viii. Simeon Abbe was born on 3 Feb 1772 in Enfield, Connecticut.
Simeon married Tabitha Killiam .
Second Generation
2. Abigail Abbe (Thomas) was born on 13 May 1750 in Enfield, Connecticut. She died on 22 Jun 1844 in Enfield, Connecticut.
Abigail married Eliphalet Collins on 1 Nov 1778 in Enfield, Connecticut. Eliphalet was born on 11 Jul 1744 in Enfield, Connecticut. He died on 22 May 1815 in Enfield, Connecticut.
They had the following children:
10 M i. Nathaniel Collins was born on 18 Apr 1771.
11 F ii. Abigail Collins .
Abigail married Simon Olmstead .
12 M iii. Eliphalet Collins .
13 F iv. Mary Collins .
14 M v. Walter Collins .
15 M vi. Jabez Collins .
16 F vii. Elsie Collins .
17 F viii. Betsey Collins .
18 M ix. Unknown Collins was born on 12 Nov 1787.
8. Peter Abbey (Thomas) was born on 20 Jul 1769 in Enfield, Connecticut. He died in 1857.
Peter married Hannah Alden on 22 Jun 1789 in Conecticut.
They had the following children:
+ 19 M i. Seth Alden Abbey was born in 1798. He died in 1880.
20 M ii. Dorrephus Abbey was born in 1792 in Connecticut. He died in 1838 in Forth Henry, Kingstown, Canada.
He was a printer and editor in early adulthood in Watertown, New York.He led an
expedition into Canada in the Patriot war in 1838. At theBattle of Prescott, November
13 - 16, 1838, he was with Colonel VonChoultz and 180 men. They held a stone
windmill for four days against aforce of two regiments of British Regulars, 3 armed
steamboats, and 900volunteers. He was captured and hanged by the British.
Of his last days in prison, Captain Heustis said he spent his lastevening writing letters
to his three orphaned children.
Third Generation
19. Seth Alden Abbey (Peter Abbey, Thomas) was born in 1798 in Connecticut. He died in 1880 in Ohio.
He was a printer, Editor, Constaple, Marshall, Sherrif, and MunicipalJudge in Cleveland, Ohio. E enlisted
in the Civil War in 1861 at the ageof 63. He was a First Leutenant in the Second Ohio Cavelry. He
servedfor three years.
Judge Abbey left a manuscript , dated June 15, 1872 in which he gives thefollowing recolections of his
grandfather, Captain Thomas Abbey ofRevolutionary War fame.
"When a small boy I was frequently at his house for a week at atime, and have heard him tell many a
thrilling tale of hairbreadthescapes, hardships, and sufferings, etc. in his service against theFrench and
Indians. At the breaking out of the Revolution, a volunteercompany was raised in his neighborhood, and
he was elected as theirCaptain. I have heard him say, frequently, that he had chances ofpromotion,
often, but his men would not consent to his leaving them. Isaw many of his old soldiers who served
during the war; and the neighborswere as particular when adressing any of them, in giving them theirtitle,
as Corporalsuch a one, or Sergeant such a one, as they would besdressing a General. Thomas Abbey
died in 1811, and was as anxious for afight with the old English again, which was just as much talked of
justbefore his death, as in his younger days."
When during the Civil Ward, Judge Abbey was offered promotion byDavid Tod, the War Governer of Ohio,
like his grandfather, he declined,charechteristically remarking to his friends that he thought he was
doingmore effective work where then situated.
Seth married Mercy Hunt in 1821.
They had the following children:
21 F i. Frances Maria Freeman Abbey was born about 1833.
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