Abram Towner Woodard Jr.

Abram Towner Woodard Jr. was born in 1842 in New York, probably in Naples, Ontario County, the son of Abram Sr. (1804-1877) and Nancy (Frisbie, 1811-1852).

Both New York natives his parents settled in Naples, Ontario County, New York where they lived for many years (both of them died there). In 1850 Abram was living on the family farm in Naples and attending school with his siblings. Abram left New York and by the time the war had broken out he had settled in western Michigan.

He stood 5’7” with dark eyes, black hair and a dark complexion and was a 21-year-old farmer possibly living in Tallmadge, Ottawa County when he enlisted in Company F on May 13, 1861. He reenlisted on December 24, 1863, at Brandy Station, Virginia, crediting Courtland, Kent County, was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough in January of 1864 and probably returned to the Regiment on or about the first of February.

He was shot in the left thigh on May 12, 1864, at Spotsylvania, Virginia, was subsequently hospitalized and he was still absent wounded in the hospital when he was transferred to Company F, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864. He remained listed as absent wounded through February of 1865, and probably until he was mustered out on July 5, 1865, at Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Abram returned to Michigan, quite possibly settling in Grand Rapids, and on October 7, 1865, he married New York native Ann Eliza Littlefield (b. 1839), sister of Daniel (formerly of Company A), and they had at least three children: Anna (b. 1868), Ella (b. 1871) and Jennie (b. 1873).

Abram was working as a furniture finisher and living with his wife and one child in Grand Rapids’s Fifth Ward in 1870, and in Grand Rapids in 1874, but by the following year had moved to Manton, Wexford County where he operated a general store, including furniture. By 1880 he was working as a furniture dealer and living with his wife and children in Manton. Abram later became the local undertaker; and indeed he lived the rest of his life in Manton.

He was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association, of Grand Army of the Republic Morton Post No. 54 in Manton and he received pension no. 150,989, dated February of 1878, drawing $4.00 per month in 1883 for a wounded left thigh.

Abram died in Manton on December 25, 1907, and was buried in Fairview cemetery, Manton: section 1, no. 138.

In January of 1908 his widow was living in Manton when she applied for and received a pension (no. 671330). She was living in Grand Rapids in 1916.