Abbot, Edwin Hale, 1834-1927

Edwin Hale Abbot was born in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1834. He received the A.B. (1855), the A.M. (1858) and the LL.B. (1862) from Harvard. In 1859 Abbot married Mary Carter, who died the following year. His marriage to Martha T. Steele in 1866 produced two sons, Philip Stanley and Edwin Hale, Jr., and an adopted daughter, Constance. Abbot practiced law in Boston from 1862-1876. After 1876 railroad and corporate litigation and affairs in the midwestern United States dominated his legal practice. From 1873, when he became general solicitor for the Wisconsin Railroad, until 1909 when he retired as president of the Wisconsin Central Company, Abbot was instrumental in the development of railroad lines, terminals, and mines in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. He died in 1927.

Edwin Hale Abbot was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1834. He received the A.B. (1855), the A.M. (1858) and the LL.B. (1862) from Harvard. In 1859 Abbot married Mary Carter, who died the following year. His marriage to Martha T. Steele in 1866 produced two sons, Philip Stanley and Edwin Hale, Jr., and an adopted daughter, Constance. Abbot practiced law in Boston from 1862-1876. After 1876 railroad and corporate litigation and affairs in the midwestern United States dominated his legal practice. From 1873, when he became general solicitor for the Wisconsin Railroad, until 1909 when he retired as president of the Wisconsin Central Company, Abbot was instrumental in the development of railroad lines, terminals, and mines in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. He died in 1927.

Edwin Hale Abbot was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1834, the son of Joseph Hale and Frances Ellingwood Larcom Abbot, and brother of Henry Larcom, Francis Ellingwood and Edward Stanley Abbot. He was educated at the Boston Latin School (1846-1851) and Harvard, where he was secretary of his class and where he received the A.B. (1855), the A.M. (1858), and the LL.B. (1862). In 1859 Abbot married Mary Carter, who died the following year. His marriage to Martha T. Steele in 1866 produced two sons, Philip Stanley and Edwin Hale, Jr., and an adopted daughter, Constance.

Abbot practiced law in Boston from 1862 to 1876. After 1876 railroad and corporate litigation and affairs in the midwestern United States dominated his legal practice. From 1873, when he became general solicitor for the Wisconsin Central Railroad, until 1909 when he retired as President of the Wisconsin Central Company, Abbot was instrumental in the development of railroad lines, terminals, and mines in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. Much of this development centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Wisconsin Central Company was based. He was responsible for construction of the Grand Central Station and terminal in Chicago, the establishment of the first car-ferry for entire trains across Lake Michigan, and the uniting of all Wisconsin Central railroads into one company. His Wisconsin Central Plan (1879), by which control of the corporation was vested in bondholders through reservation to them of voting power on stock, had a major impact on subsequent corporate organization theory and practice.

In addition, Abbot was president of the Central Car Company, the Milwaukee Property Company, and the Foreign McKenna Process Company, a division of the American McKenna Process Company.

Abbot's business associates included John Lathrop, Leonard A. Jones, Charles L. Colby, Gardner Colby, William Wallace Crapo, Henry F. Spencer, Frederick Abbot, Frederick Weil, and his sons Philip Stanley and Edwin Hale Abbot, Jr.

Law editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser from 1862 until 1870, Abbot was also a contributor to the North American Review, the New Jerusalem Magazine, and the American Law Review . He wrote two works, A Review of the Report Upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi (1862) and Phillips Brooks House (1900). He lectured at Harvard College, the University of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin, and other educational institutions.

With the exception of a number of years as a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (c. 1876), Abbot lived his adult life in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died in 1927.