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Up from southern Illinois came a tall, slender stalwart in June 1898 to enter die Class of 1902. He was looking forward eagerly to a career through West Point and into the United States Army, following the example of his father and his older brother. His father, William Abbot, as a boy served in the Volunteers during the Civil War in the grade of first sergeant, and subsequently was graduated from West Point in the Class of 1872. Henry Abbot, Stephen’s brother, the original "Nick" Abbot, was a graduate of the Class of 1897, but he died only about a year after he graduated. Stephen inherited the sobriquet, “Nick,” which clung to him throughout his life.</div>
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Abbot was never in any danger of being “found.” He was a serious student, very capable, quick to grasp the meaning of his work, and graduated well in his class. In his first class year he was captain of "B" Company, as his father had been 30 years before. Aside from his books and his duties, his chief interest was baseball. His constant promoting of it during his cadet days and hit enthusiasm for the game were unflagging. Duo to the early graduation of the preceding class, Abbot, then a second classman, was elected captain of the team, which on the 18th of May of that year, met the Navy team for the first time and won a victory for his team to the score of Army 3, Navy 2. The following year, himself a first classman and again captain of the baseball team, he was deeply disappointed to lose to the Navy. In 1908 he was made Baseball Representative on the Athletic Council.</div>
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Upon graduation Abbot was assigned to the Artillery Corps. His first duty was with the 20th Field Artillery Battery at Fort Riley, where he stayed until 1904. He was then ordered to West Point as an instructor in modem languages. During this period he had married. His bride was a charming Vassar student, Helene Black, daughter of General John C. Black, at that time Civil Service Commissioner in Washington, and who in 1894 had delivered the address to the graduating class at West Point.</div>
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When the Artillery Corps was divided into two branches, Abbot was enjoying his first independent command at Fort Hunt, on the Potomac River. He had had assignments at several different posts: Sandy Hook, N.J., Fort Rosecrans, and Fort Reno, Okla. At Fort Rosecrans he had service with a mine company. While in command at Fort Hunt it was discovered that he was suffering from a pulmonary disability which became so serious that in April 1911 he was ordered before a retiring board and shortly thereafter terminated his active duty in the Army, although he was recalled to active duty several times in later national emergencies.</div>
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Then began a search for a home that would be climatically suited to enable him to recover from the condition that was threatening him. Colorado seemed to offer an answer, so Abbot took his wife and small daughter to Canon City, Colo. Abbot was never the kind to sit idly doing nothing, and as he began to recover his normal health he interested himself in the problem of the care of the Indians. He was given a position as Superintendent of the Southern Utes with headquarters at Ignacio, not far from the “four corners,” the only place where one can stand in four of the states at one time. He grew very unhappy in this situation, feeling that the Administration of Indian Affairs was a long way from giving the Indians of that region a square deal.</div>
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Abbot and his wife, after a visit at his old home in Illinois, went to Boulder, Colo., where he spent the winter studying law, to follow the chosen profession of his father. Association with the members of the fine law faculty of the University and access to the law library confirmed his intention of following the law, and his studies took on a serious aspect.</div>
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Having in mind the building of a home in the high western mountain country which he had found favorable to his health, Abbot traveled over the mountains into the northeast part of Utah to make a study of the lands of that region. Pleased with what he saw there, he purchased several Indian allotments under the then policy of the Interior Department, which permitted the sale of certain acreages to the highest bidder. Unparalleled water rights were included with the tide to the land, forecasting unlimited possibilities in any form of agriculture he might choose to pursue.</div>
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Army activity was increasing during 1914 due to the situations in Mexico and in Europe. In May, Abbot was assigned as Acting Quartermaster at Fort Meade. Here he found time to continue his law studies in addition to taking care of his military duties, and before the end of that year he was admitted to the practice of law in South Dakota. The detail ended at about that time and on returning to Utah he was soon admitted to practice in that state. Some time later, while residing in California, he was admitted to the practice of law in that state.</div>
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After the termination of his assignment at Fort Meade, Abbot bent his energies to the making of a home for his family on the banks of the Duchesne River near the town of Randlett in Uintah County. Over the years, despite several rather long absences, he made many improvements to his property, including a residence for the lessee and the necessary buildings for all his animals. The acreage that the Abbots chose for their home was just about where it was originally intended that Fort Duchesne should have been. Rather soon after the Meeker massacre, troops had been sent over the mountains from the north with instructions to establish an army post below the junction of the Duchesne and Uintah Rivers. However, because of the lack of dependable maps of the region, and their ignorance of the streams of that wild country, they mistook the intended spot and located the garrison about 10 miles farther north. As a military outpost, Fort Duchesne had the reputation with the Cavalry of being a very remote and unpopular post, but the Abbots liked their setting, midway between two trading posts of the Ute tribe. There were no roads, no fences, and during the first six months of their occupancy of their chosen home spot, no other white men intruded upon the Indians in their teepees and wickiups.</div>
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The original trail of red men, explorers and trappers leading to old Fort Roubidoux crossed the stream at a ford which later gave practical significance to the name “Abbotsford,” which the Abbots chose for their home. This choice moreover, won the approval of a person well qualified to grasp its true meaning. During a sojourn in Salt Lake City, the Abbots had made the acquaintance of Mr. Frederick Dellenbaugh, who was a member of the first party of the famous Powell expedition, when in 1870 a frail craft carrying a handful of intrepid men, made the first voyage from Green River, Wyo., down the canyon of the Colorado River.</div>
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Abbot was chairman of a committee that dedicated a monument at the site where Father Escalante and his band, searching for a route from Sante Fe, N M., to Monterey, Cal., had crossed the Green River just west of the present Colorado-Utah line. The Abbots’ home is not far from the national monument where the wonderful find of dinosaur remains is located. This entire region of north-eastern Utah is rich in mineral resources. The most lively explorations have been made in recent years for the minerals involved in the atomic energy program. The search for oil and gas has gone on apace, with many wells encouraging the petroleum industry to continue their search, but with no great production as yet as oil is found at depths of 6000 feet more or less. Some of the vast deposits of oil shale exist in this region, to supplement our diminishing supply of liquid fuels at some future date. All of this is a region but litUe known to the general public but containing vast mineral resources and wonderful opportunities for development of hydro-electric power. This, as a matter of fact, is progressing now. The Bureau of Reclamation is building the $70,000,000 dam and power plant in the "Flaming Gorge" canyon of the Green River a short distance from the Wyoming-Utah line, and from the home of the Abbots.</div>
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These varied interests and the care, through lessees, of 320 acres of land plus 11 old Indian allotments and three farms in Illinois, occupied Abbot to the full. He liked the life and prospered by it, as he lived through a half century since the threat to his life which was the cause of his leaving the Service. In their adopted Utah both Abbot and his loyal wife played active parts in many spheres of public services. These various enterprises bound him to those among whom he lived and worked for nearly half a century. Indeed from the outset there existed a mutual regard and respect between Stephen Abbot and his associates at all levels.</div>
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Stephen was always a man of strong principles, resolute and unbending. It would be hard to find a man with more definite views as to what is right and what is wrong in this life, and with more strength and valiance in adhering to them. During a long life the ups and downs were many, sometimes hard to take, but he met them all with the same courage, patience and steadfastness that were his own. He always had a deep interest in national and international affairs. His correspondence has always been full of the expression of sound views, and it has been the feeling of some of his correspondents that he should have been enabled to play a part in molding the affairs of state.</div>
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Throughout his life, since the days when, as a plebe with his name at the top of the alphabetical list of new cadets, he was section marcher, Abbot has been held in high regard among his classmates, and it is no secret that in his adopted state of Utah, he and his charming and capable wife have played an active part in many affairs of public interest. He has left behind him a world of friends and admirers and his classmates will never forget his sterling qualities.</div>
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Late in the summer of 1961, while he was still lingering at Fitzsimons, Abbot's only daughter, Helene, and her husband, took their three children to view the plaques in the cadet gymnasium which honor the wearers of the “A,” in the Classes of 1897 and 1902, tangible evidence of part of the fine heritage that Abbot left to his grandchildren.</div>
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Abbot’s life is well illustrated by one of the sayings of that great Roman Emperor, soldier, and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius: “Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”</div>
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<em>—F. F. Longley</em></div>