"An Iron Furnace of Affliction": Abigail Abbot Bailey Endures the Abuse of her Husband, New Hampshire, 1790-1791

Abstract: During their 26 years of marriage, New Englanders Abigail Abbot and Asa Bailey lived on farms in Haverhill and Landaff, New Hampshire, and had 14 children. In 1770, Asa conducted an affair with one of the farm's hired women. Three years later, a second farm servant accused him of rape. Asa also beat his wife. In the eighteenth century, the social and economic consequences of divorce for women were grave, and Abigail chose to remain with her husband. But in late 1788, Asa perpetrated an act of incest on their 17-year-old daughter, a crime his wife could not forgive. Abigail sent him away, endured his return on several occasions, and finally divorced him in 1793. As the marriage unraveled, a religious revival unfolded in the region around her New Hampshire town. Influenced by the revival, Abigail's memoir, from which this selection is drawn, is as much a record of her relationship with God as it is a story of her trials with her husband.

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