Abiel Wood

Who was Abiel Wood?

Abiel Wood was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Born in Wiscasset, Maine, he was the son of Gen. Abiel Wood and Betsey Tinkham, both originally of Middleborough, Massachusetts. He was the second of eleven children. Wood attended the common schools, then engaged in mercantile pursuits. He served as member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 1807–1811, and again in 1816.

He married Hannah Hodge on November 30, 1793 in Wiscasset. They had one child, a daughter named Helen, who married John Hannibal Sheppard.

Wood was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Thirteenth Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1814 to the Fourteenth Congress, but served as delegate to the constitutional convention of Maine in 1819. He was a Maine State councilor, after which he resumed mercantile pursuits and also engaged in shipping. He served as Bank commissioner for Maine until his death in Belfast on October 26, 1834. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in Wiscasset.