Abigail Abbot Bailey wrote memoirs about her effort to cope with her husband's abusiveness and his incestuous relationship with their daughter. She was born to Deacon James and Sarah Abbot on February 2, 1746 in Rumford (later Concord), New Hampshire. She had nine siblings, and her parents were observant Congregationalists from old New England families. At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the family moved to a town called Newbury in an area which later became part of Vermont. Abigail and her parents joined with several other townspeople to found a Church of Christ in Newbury and nearby Haverhill, New Hampshire.

On April 15, 1767, when she was twenty-two, Abigail married Asa Bailey. Bailey and Abigail were from similar backgrounds, though his family was not as religious. Bailey began abusing her almost immediately. He had an affair with one of their female servants, and tried to rape another in 1773. This incident led to a trial, but Bailey was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

In December 1788, Abigail realized that her husband was sexually abusing Phebe, their teenage daughter. She insisted that her husband give her a portion of their property and then leave the family in peace. Bailey left in 1790, just after the couple conceived their seventeenth child.

After Bailey's departure, Abigail confided in a minister and close friends. Because she feared that testifying in a contested divorce hearing would be too upsetting for Phebe and for herself, she agreed to an informal property settlement. Bailey used the informality of this arrangement to pressure his estranged wife towards a reunion. Through a complex scheme involving the sale of their property, Bailey lured her to New York, which had harsher divorce laws. Abigail finally broke away from her husband, and traveled 270 miles to return to her friends and family in New Hampshire. With their support, she had Bailey arrested and jailed in an effort to force him into a property settlement. They divorced in May 4, 1793.

Abigail Bailey passed away on February 11, 1815 in Bath, New Hampshire. That same year, her memoirs were edited by Reverend Ethan Smith, and published by a Congregationalist layperson, Samuel T. Armstrong.

Source: Bailey, Abigail Abbot. Memoirs of Mrs. Abigail Bailey, Who Had Been the Wife of Major Asa Bailey. Edited by Ethan Smith. Boston: Samuel T. Armstrong. 1815.; American Women Prose Writers to 1820. Edited by Carla Mulford, Angela Vietto, and Amy E. Winans. Detroit: Gale Research. 1999.