The Abbott Family Tragedy

The Abbott Family Tragedy: Gunfire and Grief

Written by: Dawna Booth (2025)

In the early years  of 1870 Idaho, James “Asa” Abbott sat on the school board, a respected man with heavy responsibilities. One of those was hiring David Hannor, a new teacher in town. Along with the job came room and board at Asa’s home—an arrangement that would set in motion a chain of heartbreak and violence.

Hannor soon made unwanted advances toward Asa’s eldest daughter, Laura—just 13 years old. Outraged and protective, Asa immediately dismissed him. Then, fearing further danger, he sent his children to Missouri to live and study with their grandparents.

But Hannor wasn’t done.

That same year, Hannor sought the position of school superintendent at the convention in Centerville. Asa, determined to stop him, delivered a blistering statement:
“First, he is an educated fool. Second, his heart is as black as the ace of spades. And third, he is not competent for the position.”

 Hannor was denied. Furious, he threatened Asa, vowing to “put daylight” through him unless he offered a public apology.

On June 26, 1870, tragedy struck. Asa, his brother William, and a hired hand named Lloyd Curlin rode into Placerville for supplies. Hannor was waiting. He confronted Asa immediately. Tensions escalated. William tried to intervene, but harsh words flew like sparks in dry grass.

Hannor reached for his weapon—a monstrous pistol with nine shots and a shotgun barrel in the center—but it jammed. Asa drew and fired first but missed. Then came a barrage of gunfire from all three. William was standing behind Hannor and when the smoke cleared, they both lay dead in the dusty street.  One of Asa’s bullets had struck his brother in the abdomen.

Authorities arrested Asa and Lloyd Curlin. The charge: murder.  The trials that followed captivated the territory. The first ended in a hung jury. But the second brought relief—Asa and Lloyd were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.  This was the second time Asa had faced a murder charge.  In Josephine, Oregon, he had stabbed one of his intoxicated workers, was never brought to trial, but fled to Idaho.

The cost, though, was unbearable.

In July, William’s  brother George, acting as executor, sold off William’s ranch to James Hoey for $1,500. That included the house, all tools and machinery, and shares in the vital Toll Road and the Alder Creek water ditch that the brothers had built together.

By October, a broken Asa sold his own 1,000-acre ranch—house, titles, crops, water rights, ditches, and road interests—to his younger brother David and David’s wife Susan for $10,850. Unable to bear the weight of having accidentally killed his brother,  and the chaos Hannor had brought to his family, Asa packed up his wife Anna and their children. Taking only four mules, he left Idaho behind for Texas.

Two years later, David and Susan sold the land—"The Abbott Ranch"—for just $3,300. They kept the water and Toll Road rights and returned to Savannah, Missouri, with a new daughter they named "Idaho."

Then came the final blow. In January 1873, news traveled north: Asa had taken his own life in Denison, Texas. The tragedies had never left him. Grief had been his final frontier.

Anna returned to Idaho with the children—her third crossing of the plains. That December, she remarried. Her new husband, a widower named Asa Crapo Spooner, brought a second chance. Together, they moved to the Wood River, trying to rebuild a life haunted by gunfire, grief, and ghosted dreams.