Background
Abbot was born in Philadelphia.
explorer ornithologist Zoologist
Abbot was born in Philadelphia.
University of Pennsylvania.
He complied prodigious collections of biological specimens and ethnological artefacts from around the world, especially from Maritime Southeast Asia, and was a significant financial supporter of the United States National Museum collecting expeditions. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1881 before studying medicine there, graduating in 1884 and subsequently doing postgraduate studies in England, obtaining licentiates from the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons. In 1886 he received a substantial inheritance, ceased the formal practice of medicine, and devoted himself to exploration and collecting.
Journeys of exploration and collecting made by Abbott include:
1880 – Bird collecting in Iowa and North Dakota
1883 – Bird collecting in Cuba and Santo Domingo
1887-1889 – Taveta region, near Mount Kilimanjaro, in Kenya, East Africa
1890 – Zanzibar, Seychelles and Madagascar
1891 – India: Baltistan, Karachi, Kashmir and Srinagar
1892 – Kashmir, Baltistan, Aden, Seychelles and the Aldabra Group
1893 – Seychelles, Kashmir, Srinagar, Ladakh, Sinkiang and eastern Turkestan
1894 – As well as travelling in eastern Turkestan, India and Ceylon, he went to Madagascar to enlist in the native "Hova" army against the second French occupation of the island, until local suspicion of foreigners forced his resignation
1895 – Madagascar and Kashmir
1896 – Malay Peninsula including Perak, Penang and Trang, with a visit to Canton
1897 – Trang, Penang and India
1898 – As well as volunteering for the Spanish–American War and serving under William A. Chanler in Cuba, where he was wounded in the Battle of Tayacoba, he traveled to Singapore and China, making a visit to Tibet
1899 – Abbott constructed the schooner "Terrapin" and, using Singapore as a base for the next ten years, travelled throughout the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia often accompanied by Cecil Boden Kloss.
Places visited include the Mergui Archipelago, Natuna Islands, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Burma, Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo, Nias, the Mentawai Islands, Enggano, the Riau Archipelago and islands in the South China and Java Seas. 1909 – The onset of partial blindness, caused by spirochetosis, forced him to sell the "Terrapin" and largely suspend his collecting in the tropics.
1916 – Dominican Republic
1917-1918 – Haiti, where he suffered a near-fatal attack of dysentery
1919-1923 – Hispaniola
In 1923, Abbott retired from active fieldwork but continued to provide funding on several occasions to the United States National Museum for other collecting expeditions. He died at his farm on the Elk River in Maryland of heart disease after a long illness, leaving his books, papers and 20% of his estate to the Smithsonian Institution.
At the time of his death he was the largest single contributor to the collections of the museum.
Plants named after him include Cyathea abbottii, a tree-fern native to Hispaniola.
