Abraham Davenport

Abraham Davenport (1715–1789) was a Connecticut councillor and judge from Stamford. He was celebrated in a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier for his stoical reaction to New England's Dark Day (1780). Personal life The grandson of New Haven Colony founder John Davenport, Abraham Davenport was born in the Connecticut Colony town of Stamford in 1715 to John and Elizabeth. Davenport's home in Stamford was on Main Street, near the corner of Summer Street. Davenport graduated from Yale College with his Bachelor of Arts in 1732. He married Elizabeth Huntington on 16 November 1750 in Windham, Connecticut, and she died on 17 December 1773; Davenport remarried to Martha Fitch on 8 August 1776 in Stamford. In the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War, Davenport took ill and wounded US soldiers into home to care for their recovery. Abraham Davenport died in Danbury, Connecticut on 20 November 1789 at age 74; he was buried in Northfield, Connecticut, bequeathing that land and to the church. Public service In 1737, Davenport was the Stamford town tithingman, and in 1738, he was the town surveyor. He also served on the Stamford board of selectmen (1746–1777) for 31 years, and in the Connecticut State Militia as a colonel.