The Abbott Family
A Vintner & Innkeeper
Strawberry Banke is the oldest neighborhood in New Hampshire to be settled by Europeans, and the earliest neighborhood remaining in the present-day city of Portsmouth, N.H. The history of this area goes back to 1630, when Captain Walter Neale chose the area to build a settlement, naming it after the wild berries growing along the Piscataqua River.[1] Strawbery Banke existed as a neighborhood for a little over three centuries from 1630 to the late 1950s.
Walter Abbot (Abbott) was a Vintner upon leaving England, originally settling in Exeter New Hampshire as early as 1640. He first appears on the records of Portsmouth on April 5 1652 showing that he was a farmer & Innkeeper. He was one of the twenty two settlers to sign an agreement regarding the distribution of land and other arrangements for the governing of the settlement.
He was made freeman July 14, 1657. He was then assigned a one acre lot and on this, he built a log house and then on January 22, 1661 the townsmen assigned him ninety nine acres. He was evidently a substantial citizen possessed of some means. He received unanimous consent of the town January 1, 1657 to keep an ordinary or tavern. He was surveyor in 1658 a member of the proprietorship committee in 1660 and 1664 and was selectman in the latter year. He also may have engaged in shipping enterprises as it is stated that he died in Jamaica before 1675. The inventory of his estate consisted of one hundred and fifty five acres of land with buildings including one log and two other houses
The inventory of his estate was made in 1667 which would indicate that he died a long time before 1675. His widow Sarah married Henry Sherburne of Portsmouth. He had eight children; Peter, Sarah, Thomas, William, Walter, Mary, John and Elizabeth
An Accidental Shooting
In 1924, Kansas City, Missouri was the place to be. Infamously known as the “Paris of the Plains” for its free-flowing liquor, abundance of vice and enviable jazz scene all while the rest of the country chafed under Prohibition. Kansas City gave safe harbor to the fringe of American culture, from socialist agitators to iconic fashionistas to adventurous filmmakers according to the Kansas City Magazine.
David Abbott was 28 and the deputy sheriff of Wabaunsee County, Kansas, in 1924. He had a wife, Nellie and two small children, Gwen age 6 and Ralph, age 3 living in Alma, Kansas over a 100 miles away from the ‘big city ‘.
On Feb 12, 1924 his life would change forever in the ‘Paris of the Plains’.
