My Genealogy Hound

JOHN B. ABELL. This young gentleman is now Superintendent of the Democrat Company of Springfield, having been chosen for that position when the company was incorporated, the business having become too large for one man to manage in all its departments. Although it has been but a few years since he began his residence here, his scholarly attainments, mental capacity, and business acumen are already well known and give him an excellent standing in social and business circles. He comes of excellent families in both lines of descent and so far his life has done credit to the name it bears, while the promise for the future is a bright one.

The father of our subject, Commodore Lawrence Abell, distinguished himself in the naval service during the late war and died from hardships and exposure in 1866, at Salem, Mass. His wife, whose maiden name was Ann Hathaway, was a native of the Old Bay State, where she died, when her son of whom we write was but an infant. John B. was born in Marblehead, May 1, 1860, and after his mother’s death was reared by his uncle Charles D. Abell, his youth being spent upon a farm. Upon reaching his seventeenth year he entered Williston Seminary, afterward attending Phillip’s Academy from which he was graduated in 1881. Coming West, he then entered Oberlin College, from which institution he was graduated in 1885. Immediately after his graduation Mr. Abell came to Springfield and entered the law office of Gen. J. Warren Keifer, with whom he read law three years. During the same time he carried on quite an extensive ice business on his own account. Closing out the business at the expiration of a few years, he became an advertising solicitor and editor of the Daily Democrat, continuing thus engaged for a year when the company was incorporated and his present position assumed.

Among the members of the class of ‘85 in Oberlin College was Miss Mary E. Upp, of Sandusky, Ohio, whom he married June 30, 1886. The popularity of the young couple, their estimable characters, and mental culture, open before them an extended path of usefulness, and win for them the friendly regard of all with whom they come in contact. Mr. Abell and wife are both members of the First Congregational Church, and politically, he is a stanch Democrat.