Joel Abbot (naval officer)

Joel Abbot (born January 18, 1793 in Westford (Massachusetts) , † December 14, 1855 in Hong Kong ) was an American naval officer.

Life

Joel Abbot was the son of a father of the same name and his wife Lydia, née Cummings. He was trained for sea service and volunteered for naval service when the British-American War broke out . He was appointed midshipman in the American navy on June 18, 1812 and took part in the first actions of this war on board the frigate USS President , under the command of Commodore John Rodgers . In 1813 he was taken prisoner by the English, but was soon released again through a prisoner exchange and now served under Commodore Thomas Macdonough on Lake Champlain . He was ordered, disguised as a British naval officer, to penetrate behind the enemy lines and destroy the spars stored in Sorel-Tracy and other items urgently needed by the British for shipbuilding, which he successfully carried out. For this dangerous act and his courage shown on September 11, 1814 in the battle at the Cumberland Head peninsula jutting out into Lake Champlain , he was awarded a sword of honor by Congress , like other Macdonough midshipmen .

On April 1, 1818 Abbot was promoted to lieutenant . In the same year he took over the management of the hijacked pirate ship Mariana . In January 1820 he married Mary Wood, with whom he had a child. This, his first wife, died on April 15, 1821. Irritated by the fact that he had not been given leave to assist her in her last hours, Abbot raised serious accusations against his superior, Captain Isaac Hull , in March 1822 . Since he could not prove this, he was suspended from duty for two years. Then he was allowed to return to his work in the US Navy . On November 29, 1825, he married Laura Wheaton a second time and had nine children with her. He was named commander in 1838 and in command of the Boston Navy Yard the following year .

On October 3, 1850 Abbot rose to the rank of captain. When Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry was commissioned to establish diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan , he appointed Abbot in 1852 to command the frigate USS Macedonian , which was part of the fleet sailing to Japan under Perry's high command. On Perry's orders, he visited the Philippines and Taiwan in addition to the Japanese islands . In 1854 he served as a flag officer with the East India Squadron . At the age of almost 63 he died in Hong Kong at the end of 1855 from the negative effects of the Southeast Asian climate. His body was transferred to the United States and buried in the Abbot family grave in Warren, Rhode Island . Two destroyers of the American navy, USS Abbot (DD-184) and USS Abbot (DD-629) , were named after him. His son Walter Abbot († 1873) served, among other things, during the Civil War in the US Navy and achieved the rank of corvette captain .

literature

• Abbot, Joel . In: Dictionary of American Biography , Vol. 1 (1928), pp. 14f.