Thomas Abell Sr. was a veteran of the Revolutionary War who fought in Vermont at the Battle of Bennington and at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point in upstate New York. In 1813 he came to Fredonia to establish his homestead with his oldest son, Mosley Abell, who had relocated there from Buffalo at that time. He died in Fredonia the following year, in 1814, a day after his 65th birthday. After their father's death, Mosley Abell and his younger brother, Thomas G. Abell, remained in Fredonia, entered a number of successful business ventures, and cared for their widowed mother, who lived there until her death in 1841.