Horace Abbott
| Horace Abbott | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 29, 1806 Sudbury, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died |
August 8, 1887 (aged 81) Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Occupation | Iron manufacturer, banker |
Horace Abbott (July 29, 1806 – August 8, 1887) was an American iron manufacturer and banker. His work included the armor plating for the USS Monitor, USS Agamenticus, USS Roanoke, and the USS Monadnock.[1]
He was born in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Abbott move to Baltimore in 1836 and purchased the Canton Iron Works in Baltimore, Maryland, which specialized in the production of steamboat and railroad components.[1] It was renamed the Abbott Iron Company. The company's 1850 mill was largest iron mill in the United States at that time. It was said that iron plates were rolled here for shipment to New York City for John Ericsson's revolutionary new ship, the U.S.S. Monitor ironclad which fought the Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly the raised U.S.S. Merrimac from the Norfolk Navy Yard in Hampton Roads harbor, Virginia in 1862.[2]
He also was the founder of Baltimore's First National Bank, and a director of the Second National Bank of Baltimore and the Union Railroad of Baltimore, acquired by the Northern Central Railway in 1882, eventually becoming part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He lived at his country estate "Abbotston" in northeast Baltimore near the present location of 33rd Street and The Alameda on one of the highest hills in the city near the village of Huntingdon (now Waverly) to the west and the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello community off Harford Road to the east. A Victorian mansion was constructed in the 1870s near the earlier Federal-era estate of "Montebello" of Samuel Smith, (1752-1839), U.S. Senator, Baltimore City mayor, and commanding general of the Maryland militia during the War of 1812 during the British attack against Baltimore and a later Victorian mansion of the same name belonging to John Work Garrett, Civil War-era president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Abbott died in Baltimore, Maryland. He also endowed the Abbott Memorial Presbyterian Church on Bank Street in the Highlandtown neighborhood of southeast Baltimore.
References
- 1 2 Scharf, John Thomas (1881). History of Baltimore City and County, from the earliest period to the present day:including biographical sketches of their representative men. L.H. Everts. p. 427. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- ↑ "Horace Abbott". Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1963.