HENRY ABEL

ABEL, FELT, MOFFITT

Posted By: STurner (email)
Date: 4/19/2019 at 14:50:52

ABEL, HENRY, far., sec. 34; P. O. Franklin Centre; son of Henry and Elizabeth Abel; Born May 2, 1819, in Bavaria, Germany; emigrated with parents to the United States in the fall of 1832; stopped in Franklin Co., Penn., till the spring of 1833, when they moved to Stark Co., Ohio, and thence to this county in the fall of 1836, locating in West Point tp., and the same winter engaged to Levi Moffitt to run the Augusta Mills, where he remained for three years. He and his father were the first millers in Lee Co.; their customers frequently came to mill from a distance of 75 to 100 miles, and camping out, and sometimes having to wait three and four weeks for their grists to be ground; since leaving the mills at Augusta, he has devoted his time to farming, with the exception of one season steamboating on the Mississippi River, and one winter running the Farmington Mills. Mr. Abel was the first person who discovered the dead bodies of Leisa and Miller, who were murdered by the Hodges Bros.; he carried the first news to West Point and Fort Madison; that was the first murder committed in Lee Co. Mr. A. has served his township as Trustee; was also candidate for Representative on the Republican ticket in the fall of 1876. He married Miss Christine Felt, of this county, May 20, 1847; she was born in Hesse Darinstadt, Germany, in May, 1833; came to Ohio in 1837, and to Lee Co. in 1845; they have five children - Elizabeth, born May 14, 1849, John, born Oct. 25, 1851; Henry, Jr., born March 27, 1853; David, born June 3, 1857; Michael J., born July 7, 1859. Mr. A. came to his present farm in 1852; his father was a soldier under Napoleon Bonaparte, and died in West Point Tp. in 1874, in his 87th year, and mother in same township in 1868. Mr. A. and family are members of the Evangelical Church; Republican.

Source: BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY
HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY IOWA
CHICAGO: WESTERN HISTORICAL COMPANY, 1879

Transcription typed/proofed as article was originally published in 1879