This obituary of W. W. Abbot, distinguished historian of the American
South and editor emeritus of the Papers of George Washington, appeared
in the Charlottesville Daily Progress today:
 
 
William Wright Abbot III of Charlottesville, Virginia, died peacefully
in his sleep on Monday, August 31, 2009, at the age of 87.

Professor Abbot was born in Louisville, Georgia, on May 20, 1922, the
son William Wright Abbot Jr. and Lillian Carswell Abbot. 

He graduated from Louisville Academy, a public high school, in 1939 and
attended Davidson College for two years. In 1941 he transferred to the
University of Georgia, where he was awarded the baccalaureate degree
upon his entering the United States Navy in 1943.

During World War II, Mr. Abbot served in small craft in the Pacific
Ocean and in the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas. He would later quip
that he felt he reached the pinnacle of his own personal authority at
the age of 22 when, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, he was made
Captain of PC 504, a 110-foot submarine chaser.

Mr. Abbot's career as a teacher spanned nearly 50 years. It began when
he was assigned to teach celestial navigation to young naval cadets at
Duke University in the spring of 1946. That fall, he returned to his
hometown to teach science and English grammar at his old high school.

Under the G.I. bill, Mr. Abbot went on to study history at Duke
University, where he earned his masters and doctorate degrees. After
completing his Ph.D. in 1953, he was hired as an assistant professor of
history by the College of William and Mary.

Mr. Abbot met his wife, Eleanor Pearre, in Williamsburg, and their two
sons were born while he was a member of the William and Mary faculty.
Except for brief stints with the history departments at Northwestern
University in 1959 and Rice University from 1961 until 1962, Mr. Abbot
remained at William and Mary until 1966, when he joined the faculty at
the University of Virginia. At the University of Virginia, Mr. Abbot
held the chair of James Madison Professor of History for 26 years,
serving twice as chairman of the Corcoran Department of History.

Among historians, Professor Abbot was best known as an editor. His
association with The William and Mary Quarterly, the magazine of early
American History, began in 1953 and he was its editor from 1961 until
1966. He also edited The Journal of Southern History in 1960 and 1961.
During the latter years of his career at the University of Virginia, he
devoted most of his efforts to editing The Papers of George Washington,
serving as chief editor from 1977 until 1992. 

Although he retired from the university in 1992, Mr. Abbot continued to
edit individual volumes of the Washington Papers until 1998, by which
time close to 50 volumes were in print.

In addition to editing magazines and documents, Professor Abbot wrote
two books and several articles, but he believed his chief contributions
as a teacher and historian came from the attentive reading and detailed
responses that he gave over the years to what his students, and many of
his fellow historians, wrote.

Professor Abbot was always active in the affairs of his profession and
the institutions to which he belonged. He served as president of the
Alpha chapter of Phi Beta Kappa from 1984 until 1987 and on the councils
of the Institute of Early American History and Culture and the Southern
Historical Association. 

For 20 years he was on the board of editors of The Virginia Quarterly
Review and was a member of Gridiron Club at the University of Georgia
and the Raven Society at the University of Virginia. In 1989, the
Virginia Historical Society made him a life member, and in 1998 the
College of William and Mary awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of
Humane Letters.

He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Eleanor Abbot; and his sons,
Wright Abbot and his wife, Cynthia Cox, and their wo children, Will and
Catherine, of Baltimore, Maryland and John Abbot of Washington, D.C.;
his sister, Lillian Easterlin of Louisville, Georgia; and Louise
Hardeman Abbot, also of Louisville, the widow of his younger brother,
James Carswell Abbot.

Hill and Wood Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. 

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