John Stevens Cabot Abbott


John Stevens Cabot Abbott, an American historian, pastor, and pedagogical writer, was born in Brunswick, Maine to Jacob and Betsey Abbott.

Early life

He was a brother of Jacob Abbott, and was associated with him in the management of Abbott's Institute, New York City, and in the preparation of his series of brief historical biographies. Dr. Abbott graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825, prepared for the ministry at Andover Theological Seminary, and between 1830 and 1844, when he retired from the ministry in the Congregational Church, preached successively at Worcester, Roxbury and Nantucket, all in Massachusetts.

Literary career

Owing to the success of his work, The Mother at Home, he devoted himself from 1844 onwards, to literature. He was a voluminous writer of books on Christian ethics, and of popular histories, which were credited with cultivating a popular interest in history. He is best known as the author of the widely popular History of Napoleon Bonaparte, in which the various elements and episodes in Napoleon's career are described. Abbott takes a very favourable view towards his subject throughout. Also among his principal works are: History of the Civil War in America,History of Napoleon III Emperor of the French, and The History of Frederick II, Called Frederick the Great. He also did a foreword to a book called Life of Boone by W.M. Bogart, about Daniel Boone in 1876.
In general, although he did not write juvenile fiction, his work in subject and style closely resembles that of his brother, Jacob Abbott.

Marriage and children

On August 17, 1830 he married Jane Williams Bourne, daughter of Abner Bourne and Abagail Williams. Together they raised nine children:
  1. John Brown Abbott
  2. Jane Maria Abbott
  3. Waldo Abbott
  4. Harriet Vaughan Abbott
  5. Ellen Williams Abbott
  6. Laura Sallucia Abbott
  7. Elizabeth Ballister Abbott
  8. Emma Susan Abbott
  9. Gorham Dummer Abbott
As a part of the 1872 Iwakura Mission Abbott was given guardianship of Shige Nagai, a Japanese girl sent to the United States to be educated. She became one of the first piano teachers in Japan, and one of the first two Japanese women to attend a college.
Abbott died at Fair Haven, Connecticut. In 1910, a series of twenty short biographies of historical characters by J. S. C. and Jacob Abbott, was published. Their brother, Gorham Dummer Abbott, was also an author. Abbott's grandson, Willis Abbott, was a journalist and author and an editor of the Christian Science Monitor.

Selected bibliography

Inspirational/religious

Published after 1850 in the series Illustrated History, with other titles by his brother Jacob Abbott. Later reissued in the Famous Characters of History series, and in the 1904 series Makers of History:
The American Pioneers And Patriots set: