In 1818, at the age of thirty-two he married Miss Sidney Grimes, daughter of John Grimes, of Sparta, Georgia. She had the reputation of being the “handsomest lady of her day in Greene County.”
Maj. General Anderson Abercombie was an extensive planter and slave owner. He enlisted as a private in the War of 1812, rose to the rank of adjutant-general and was in the battle of Ottosee and Calebee. He was wounded in the left arm at the battle of Calebee by a rifleshot. The Indians were his friends on account of his kindness to them, and when hostilities broke out between the settlers and Indians, the Abercrombie home was not molested.
He represented Hancock County, Georgia 1826 and 1827, in the House. In Feb. 1832, he moved to Russell County, Alabama, where he settled on a large plantation and with his brother Charles Abercrombie, purchased a large tract of land on Coweta Bend embracing the Indian town of Coweta, part of which purchase money was paid to the Indians and part to the Columbus Land Company. This was a few miles from Fort Mitchell. In 1836, he was again in the military service and became the first president of the Mobile and Girard Railroad, but later resigned due to increasing farming interest.
He was a Presbyterian and a Democrat. Maj. Gen. Abercrombie was listed as foreman of the first Grand Jury ever empaneled in the Russell County Circuit Court in 1833. After his father’s death, General Abercrombie was appointed administrator of his large estate. “The venerable Judge. G. D. Hooper, of Opelika who in his prime was a contemporary and a warm friend of General Abercrombie, regarded him as a man for whom nature had done more and education less, than any man in Russell County and the County recognized this fact, regarding him as the only peer of ex-Governor Hamilton, of South Carolina, who settled on the Oswichie Bend in 1842, and afterwards moved to Texas and died.”
The children of Gen. Abercrombie and Sidney Grimes were:
Elizabeth Abercrombie, (Nov. 30, 1819 – Nov. 20, 1892) m. Judge Nicholas Howard lied in Wynton, Georgia.;
“The Abercrombies were said to be as quiet as lambs in peace and safety, and bold as lions in war and danger. They were a wealthy family and gathered around them the most intelligent and refined Society in the State, dispensing a hospitality, bounded only by good taste and sound judgement, consequently it was as durable as their lives were long. Their social position was the highest and in the latter years of their lives was tempered to a still higher refinement by the potent influences of the Christian religion. The family connexion of today is the most extensive in Russell, Lee and Macon counties. By blood and by Marriage they are connected with the Bellamys, Crowells, Nesbits, Lindseys, Lewises, Martins, Grants Claytons, Clantons, Belsers, Halls, Rosses, Slenus, Gordons, Fraders, Hurts, Davies, McDonalds, etc.
In the olden days, gala days were frequent on the Bend, “Abercrombie Bar” being the favorite picnic ground. It was when the great oaks put on their autumn livery of crimson and gold just after the hoar frost glittered upon the distant terraced hills, and the proverbial Southern Indian summer was in its glory, when the partridge answered its mate in the russet meadord, when the black birds whistled in the hazel copprice and the wild turkeys were piping in the deep woods and the hurry and flurry of the crop season was over and general relaxation for man and beast followed, that the youthful manhood and maiden beauty, the reigning belles and beaux, both rustic and refined, from city and country on both sides of the river would gather in hundreds at this favorite resort to enjoy a day of recreation and indulge in sports, amusements and pastimes of the old, old days.”
General Abercrombie died suddenly while visiting his daughter, February 21, 1867, Elizabeth Howard at the age of 82 years. He was buried in the family burying ground in Russell County, Alabama. His wife, Sidney, died in 1876.
