The Biographical Dictionary of America/Abbott, Josiah Gardner

ABBOTT, Josiah Gardner, lawyer, was born in Chelmsford, Mass., Nov. 1, 1814, son of Caleb and Mercy (Fletcher) Abbott. His first American ancestors, George Abbott and William Fletcher, were English Puritans, who settled in Massachusetts in 1640 and 1653, respectively. In the American revolution his two grandfathers were soldiers under Prescott in the battle of Bunker Hill, and both held commissions in the army of Washington. His preparatory education was directed by Abiel Abbott, Cranmore Wallace, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was graduated from Harvard college in 1832 with high honors, the youngest of his class. Joel Adams of Chelmsford, and Nathaniel Wright of Lowell, Mass., were his instructors in law. He was admitted to the bar and began practice in Lowell in 1837. The same year he was elected to the house of representatives of his state, the youngest member of that body. He edited the Lowell Advertiser in 1840, conducting it as a democratic organ, advocating the re-election of President Van Buren. In 1842-'43 he represented the Middlesex district in the state senate, and was chairman of the judiciary and railroad committees. In 1850 he was appointed master in chancery, and served as such five years. In 1853 he was a member of the state constitutional convention from Lowell, and in 1855 was appointed one of the justices of the superior court for Suffolk county, but resigned in 1858 to take up the more profitable practice of his profession. He declined a place on the supreme court bench in 1860. In 1861, Judge Abbott removed to Boston, where he continued the practice of his profession. His part in the civil war was conspicuous for the sacrifices he made in time, money, eloquence and the services of three of his sons then on the threshold of vigorous manhood — Edward Gardner fell at Cedar Mountain, Va., Aug. 9, 1862; Henry Livermore at the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, and Fletcher Morton alone returned to his father's roof. In his practice in the courts Mr. Abbott was prominent in several capital cases, in which he defended the accused with consummate skill, the proceedings having become part of the history of criminal procedure, and largely quoted as precedents. His fifty years of active practice as a lawyer connected his name with some of the most celebrated litigations of his time. In 1863-'69, and again in 1877, Mr. Abbott received the vote of the Democrats in the state legislature for United States senator. In 1874 Judge Abbott was elected to represent his district in the forty-fourth congress. His election was contested and he did not take his seat until near the close of the first session. As a member of the special committee to investigate the alleged frauds in the election of November, 1876, he visited South Carolina, and wrote the report of the committee. He was subsequently made a member of the electoral commission, and was accorded the leadership of the minority of that commission and wrote the report, not made public at the time, opposing the decision of the commission as to the contested states, Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina. His report was published in an address to the people of the United States, in the Magazine of American History for February, 1892. In 1872 he was an unsuccessful candidate of a faction of the democratic party for the governorship of Massachusetts. As a democrat, Judge Abbott was a delegate from Massachusetts to seven national conventions, and chairman of his state delegations six times. In 1862 Williams college conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He died at his home at Wellesley Hills, near Boston, June 2, 1891.