Judge Abbott was born in Chelmsford on the first of November, 1814.  He was fitted for college under the instruction of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He entered Harvard College at the early age of fourteen and was graduated in 1832.  After taking his degree, he studied law with Nathaniel Wright, of Lowell, and was admitted to the bar in 1837.  In 1840, he formed with Samuel A. Brown a partnership, which continued until he was appointed to the bench in 1855.

From the very first, Judge Abbott took a leading position in his profession, and at once acquired an extensive and lucrative practice, without undergoing a tedious probation, or having any experience of the “hope deferred which maketh the heart sick.”  In criminal cases his services were in great demand.  He had, and has, the advantage of a fine and commanding person, which, both at the bar and in the Senate, and, in fact, in all situations where a man sustains the relation of an advocate or orator before the public, is really a great advantage, other things being equal.  As a speaker, Judge Abbott is fluent, persuasive, and effective.  He excites his own intensity of feeling in the jury or audience that he is addressing.  His client’s cause is emphatically his own.  He is equal to any emergency of attack or defence.  If he believes in a person or cause, he believes fully and without reservation; thus he is no trimmer or half-and-half advocate.  He has great capacity for labor, and immense power of application, extremely industrious habits, and what may be called a nervous intellectuality, which, in athletic phrase, gives him great staying power, a most important quality in the conduct of long and sharply contested jury trials.  After saying this, it is almost needless to add that he is full of self-reliance and of confidence in whatever he deliberately champions.  His nerve and pluck are inherited traits, which were conspicuous in his ancestors, as their participation in the French and Indian wars, and in the war for Independence, sufficiently shows.  Three of Judge Abbott’s sons served in the army during the war of the Rebellion, and two of them fell in battle, thus showing that they, too, inherited the martial spirit of their ancestors.

Judge Abbott had just reached his majority, when he was chosen as representative to the Legislature.  In 1841, he was elected State senator.  During his first term in the Senate he served on the railroad and judiciary committees; and during his second term, as chairman of these committees, he rendered services of great and permanent value to the State.  At the close of his youthful legislative career he returned with renewed zeal to the practice of his profession.  His ability as a legislator had made him conspicuous and brought him in contact with persons managing large business interests, who were greatly attracted by the brilliant young lawyer and law-maker, and swelled the list of his clients.