My Family Tree

Author: David Crandall Schafer

Abner Hinckley was born at the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, March 24, 1747, the second child of Edmund Hinckley and Sarah Howland. Abner had six siblings: Edmund, Mary, Enoch, Heman, Anna and Benjamin.

From Abner Hinckley’s pension application, he describes his service during the Revolution as beginning “…sometime in November or December 1775…” and for a period of six weeks as a private in Captain George Lewis’s Company of the militia. Records show he enlisted in Captain Elisha Nye’s Company, January 25, 1776 and was stationed at the Elizabeth Islands for the defense of the seacoast. He marched from Barnstable to Naushon Island (of the Elizabeth Islands) and was stationed there “…for the greater part of the time of nine months…” with some time also stationed at Woods Hole and was discharged November 21, 1776. In September 1778, he was a private in Captain Jacob Lovell’s Company of Colonel Nathaniel Freeman’s Regiment with service of ten days on an alarm at Bedford, Dartmouth, and Falmouth. Additionally, he served three months in 1780 as a Sergeant in Captain Micah Hamlin’s Militia Company of Colonel Enoch Hallett’s Regiment, detached to reinforce the Continental Army at Rhode Island and was discharged October 30.

Prior to his final service in the militia, Abner was married to Hannah Lovell of Barnstable, January 1, 1778 by Reverend Oaks Shaw of the West Parish Congregational Church. Together they had 13 children: Marshall, Sarah, Abner, Hannah, Rosannah, Alvin, Heman, Content, Sophia, Heman, Heman, Rolinza, and Asenath; with three children, Heman, Heman and Asenath, dying at infancy.

Abner was active in his community from 1786 to 1807, serving as a “fence viewer” (a town official who administers fence laws by inspecting new fences and settles disputes arising from trespass by livestock), a “hog reeve” (a Colonial New England term for a person charted with prevention or appraising of damages by stray swine), petit juror and “school agent.”

With the passage of the Revolutionary War Pension Act of 1832, Abner Hinckley made application for his pension May 9, 1834. His pension was allowed June 20, 1834, in the amount of $50 per year for his service of ten months and 15 days as a private, and three months as a sergeant.

Abner died August 28, 1834 and was buried beside his wife, Hannah, who had preceded him two years earlier. They are buried at the Hillside cemetery at the village of Osterville, of the town of Barnstable.