Joshua Chandler Abbott

Joshua Chandler Abbott was born 14 August 1804 in Massachusetts, the son of Solomon Abbott II and Lucy Frye.
Before the fall of 1834 Joshua moved to Rochester, Monroe, New York, where he was married to Ruth Markham by a Methodist minister. Ruth was the daughter of James Markham and Lois Leach.
After their marriage they resided in Brockport, Monroe County, [New York] until 1835. In that year they removed to Hiram, Portage County, Ohio. It is likely they moved to Hiram because Ruth's sister, Betsey Elizabeth Gardner, and her husband, Elias Gardner, lived there.
On 14 April 1837 they had a daughter Ellen Elizabeth Abbott at Ogden, Genessee County, New York. They had another daughter Mary Abbott in 1839 while at Portage County, Ohio.
It is assumed that they united with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints in Hiram. After their baptism by Thomas Ducher they migrated with the Saints to Hancock County, Illinois. They had James Steele Abbott in 1843 in Illinois, and in Hancock their two children died: Mary, 1845 age 6, and James, 1844 age 1.
After burying their children, Joshua and Ruth Abbott fled from religious persecution into Iowa Territory. At Council Bluffs, Joshua enlisted in the Mormon Battalion. Ruth volunteered to accompany him on the Battalion trek as a laundress in Captain Nelson Higgins Company D. Together they marched from Council Bluffs to Santa Fe., where they were detached with the sick under the leadership of Captain James Brown, to Fort Pueblo. At the fort, Joshua was wounded in his hand by a bullet in October 1846 (Pension File).
After wintering at Pueblo, Captain Brown's sick battalion, including Joshua and Ruth Abbott, migrated to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving on 27 July 1847. (See note below)
By Aug 1, 1846 the Mormon Battalion, at that time numbered 549 men, were camped at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas traveling westward by another route, thus greatly weakening the camp of the saints. The men had been given the privilege of having their wives with them and there were a few children named. Ruth Abbott's name was among the list of women of the Battalion but her child, Ellen Elizabeth Abbott, was not listed there. (PH vol 5)
It appears that Joshua and Ruth had left their nine year old daughter with Ruth's sister, Betsy Markham, at Winter Quarters. Tradition is that Ellen came across the plains with the Gardner's. (More complete details pertaining to the Abbott's daughter and her plural marriage as fifth wife of Elias Gardner on February 9, 1852, and their subequent twelve children, are recorded in the Joshua and Ruth Abbott Manuscript.)
When Joshua and Ruth were with the sick detachment to Pueblo, Colorado, where they wintered the winter of 1846-47, it is though they then came on to Salt Lake with the sick detachment in the summer of 1847, being mustered out at Utah Valley on July 16, 1847, according to an affidavit signed by two of his fellow soldiers. However, other records in his serviceman’s file and pension application file say he was discharged on Dec 30, 1847, but they don’t say where. His certificate of discharge does not appear to be in either of these files. He probably surrendered it to the land office to obtain his bounty land as was the requirement. Salt Lake Valley was the most likely place they were mustered out.
When Joshua and Ruth settled in Salt Lake Valley, they owned a little spring or stream of water. But as Salt Lake grew, the city had to have his stream of water for the city water. Joshua Abbott thought for the city to take his water that he ran his grist mill with wasn.t right, and it made him angry. Joshua left the Salt Lake Valley after a confrontation with Brigham Young in the spring of 1849.
One family story states that Joshua tried to persuade his wife, Ruth, to go with him, but she was tired out from their trip across the plains [and had a new daughter, Emily Ann Abbott born December 24, 1848 in SLC]. She told him to go ahead and get a home for them, and she would follow him. But I guess he (about that time) thought the world was turning against him, and he left.
Another story is that he heard that his family had been killed by Indians, and so he never did return to Salt Lake.
At any rate, by the spring of 1851, his wife was living alone in Bountiful, next door to her second cousin, Stephen Markham with her two daughters, Ellen Elizabeth and Emily Ann. According to what she said, Joshua left her in the spring of 1849. He migrated to Atchison Country, Missouri, where in July 1849, he applied for his bounty land of 160 acres in Illinois. A warrant was issued for 160 acres in Illinois. There is no evidence to indicate that Joshua ever went to Illinois to claim his land, as on Feb 8, 1850, he assigned it to a John S. Hayward, probably for some compensation, as this was a widespread practice at this time for soldiers to sell their land warrants. Two witnesses to the bill of sale were Allen Compton and James Brown, were also in the Mormon Battalion with Joshua; Compton in the same Company D and Brown, Captain of Company C; and they were also in the sick detachment sent to Pueblo and then on to Salt Lake City. Two of his companions from Company D of the Mormon Battalion, John Steele and William Howe, were also there at that time, and there might have been some involvement with them which took him to this area. How long he stayed here is unknown.
Sometime after Feb. 8, 1850, he must have moved to California. Where he was and when he moved to California, we don’t know. We know he was there and married the second time to Jane Brockway (Life Sketch, Joshua Abbot) by 1868 is obvious from the fact that his son, Jessie G. Abbot, was born then. He could have been married earlier than 1868, as he supposedly had another child named Susan Abbot by his second wife.
Between 1870 and 1880 he removed to Douglas County, Oregon, and worked as a farmer (Oregon Federal Census, 1880). In Gardiner, Douglas County, he was married for the third time to a 46-year-old widow Mrs. Nancy J. Bay (b. 6 July 1826, Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois and married to William F. Bay, about 1842) on 1 February 1882 by E. H. Burchard, justice of the peace (Pension File) in Gardiner, Douglas County, Oregon.
Ruth Markham Abbott never heard from him. Ruth Abbott was sealed to Elias Gardner, her son-in-law on February 9, 1852, and made her home with Elias Gardner and Ruth's daughter Ellen Elizabeth Abbott Gardner, wife of Elias Gardner.
Ruth Markham died 13 September 1888 in Annabella, Sevier County, Utah. Years after Ruth Abbott died, her daughter, Ellen Elizabeth Abbott Gardner, received a letter from her father, Joshua Chandler Abbott, wanting her to come to him, but she died shortly [twenty years] after she received his letter [she died July 17, 1916], so her daughter, Martha Jan Gardner Kearns (1880-1974), found out that Joshua Abbott married again and had one son, a doctor.
By 1888 Joshua's health was declining. In 1894 he suffered from rheumatism and natural disabilities related to old age. He was unable to perform manual labor on his 160 acres of land: 120 acres were mountainous, and 40 acres were swampland. This acreage, value at $250, did not provide him with any income (Pension File).
He died from hematemesis. On 9 April 1896 (age 91) at his home site on the Smith River in Gardiner, Douglas County, Oregon. T. B. Gabriel helped wash, dress, and bury the body. After this burial, a conflict arose over legal rights to the widow's pension. Joshua had never divorced his first wife even though he married two or three other women.
According to the government pension examiner, his marriage to his last wife was considered a common-law union and not valid in the state of Oregon (Pension File).