Daniel Abbott

Who was Daniel Abbott?

Daniel Abbott was a deputy governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The son of Daniel and Margaret Abbott of Providence in the Rhode Island colony, he was called Daniel Abbott, Jr. when made a freeman of Providence in 1708. He served on the Providence Town Council in 1713, and the same year served as Deputy, which position he held numerous times until the year of his death. In 1720 he was Clerk of the Assembly, and from 1737 to 1738 he was Speaker of the House of Deputies. In 1738 he was elected as Deputy Governor of the colony, and served for two one-year terms, under John Wanton as governor.

In 1723 Abbott and his wife deeded a plot of land in Providence for establishing a church "in the Presbyterian or Congregational way." Ten years later, he and two others were appointed by the Assembly to erect a new jail in Providence of the same size as the one in Kings County. Early in 1740 he was given 20 pounds for his time and expense in revising and renewing the boundary line between the Rhode Island and Connecticut colonies, and later that year he was on a committee to determine the boundaries between the Rhode Island and Massachusetts colonies.