Jackson, Abigail (Becker)

  • From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: See full biography at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Becker
  • Wiki Biography:
    • Abigail Becker (née Jackson; 1830 or 1831–1905), known as the Angel of Long Point, was a Canadian farmer and trapper who saved the lives of seventeen people across five unique incidents. These included rescuing two individuals who had fallen down separate wells when Becker was a child, and later as an adult sailors caught in storms along the shores of Long Point on Lake Erie during three different shipwrecks. She ran a farmstead in Ontario and raised nineteen children, eleven of her own biological, three step-children, and two more adopted.
    • Becker was recognized for acts of bravery and risking her life multiple times in hazardous conditions. She received national and international honors, including awards from the Government of Canada, Queen Victoria, and King Edward VII. Becker remains widely known as the Angel of Long Point.
    • Abigail Jackson was born on March 14, 1830, in Portland Township, Frontenac County, Upper Canada. Other sources give March 14, 1831, for the same place of birth.  Her father, Elijah Jackson, was a United Empire Loyalist and a Dutch immigrant to New York who later settled in Canada, while her mother, Marie Grozaine, was French-Canadian.
    • Becker was noted for her height, reportedly standing six feet tall as a teenager. In her youth, she twice rescued people from wells: first pulling a child from a deep shaft, and later hauling a man to safety from another well.  At age 17, she married Jeremiah Becker, a widower with six children and a trapper from Long Point, Ontario, in 1848
    • The Abigail Becker Ward was established at Simcoe Town Hospital—now Norfolk General Hospital—where her portrait hangs. Abigail Becker Parkway on Long Point, as well as a parking lot, bear her name. The Abigail Becker Conservation Area includes part of the land where her family farm once stood in Norfolk County.
    • On 10 September 1958, a plaque honouring Becker as the “Heroine of Long Point” was placed by the Archaeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario at Port Rowan. Relics from Becker’s life are displayed in the Eva Brook Donly Museum of Art and Antiques in Simcoe.Becker has been part of an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute.
  • Great Granddaughter of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4168
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29426633/abigail-becker