Orlin A. Abeel, born on August 17, 1849, in Albany, New York, was a descendant of John Abeel, an early mayor of Albany. After relocating with his family to Madison, Wisconsin, in his youth, Abeel worked in various clerical and executive positions, including roles with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad and the Bradstreet Mercantile Agency. In 1888, he became cashier of the Bank of Centerville and later held the same position at the Alcester State Bank. Abeel was also a newspaper editor and a committed Mason. He married Edith L. Hall in 1888, and they had five sons.
Orlin A. Abeel, cashier of the Alcester State Bank, in Alcester, Union County, is a native of the city of Albany, New York, where he was born on the 17th of August 1849, being a son of Waldo and Maria Abeel, who were likewise born in that state. The Abeel family is one of the old and honored ones in the Empire State, and the records extant show that John Abeel, of whom the subject is a direct descendant, was mayor of Albany in 1694, and that he signed the charter for historic old Trinity Church in New York City. Henry V. S. Abeel, grandfather of our subject, was a valiant soldier in the War of 1812. Orlin A. Abeel received an excellent common-school education, but his training has been most effectually rounded out under the discipline of that wise headmaster, experience. When he was three years of age his parents removed to Wisconsin, locating in Madison, and his father became superintendent of the Madison division of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, retaining the incumbency until his death. In 1865, at the age of sixteen years, our subject inaugurated his independent career, securing a position as clerk in the office of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad at Madison, and later being promoted to the office of cashier for the same company in its office at Missouri Valley, Iowa. Later he was for three years in charge of the country department of the Bradstreet Mercantile Agency, in its Chicago office, and then became pool clerk for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, in the same city. In 1884 he became private secretary to Charles M. Hays, at St. Louis, Missouri, in the general manager’s office of the Gould system, retaining this incumbency until 1884, in December of which year he came to what is now the state of South Dakota and located on a farm in Union County. In 1888 Mr. Abeel was elected cashier of the Bank of Centerville, Turner County, and was elected county treasurer in 1890. In 1896 he took up his residence in Alcester and here was publisher and editor of the Alcester Union from 1896 until January 1, 1903, when he was elected to his present position as cashier of the Alcester State Bank. He is a fine accountant and endowed with excellent executive ability, and the affairs of the institution are most consistently placed in his charge. He has disposed of his newspaper plant and business, having made the Union a true exponent of local affairs and interests and an able advocate of the principles of the Republican party, to which he has ever given an uncompromising allegiance. He is identified with the Masonic fraternity, and was master of the lodge at Parker, South Dakota, for three years, while he served for three years in the same capacity in Alcester Lodge, No. 115, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
On the 14th of December 1888, Mr. Abeel was united in marriage to Miss Edith L. Hall, of Union County, Dakota Territory, daughter of Samuel W. Hall, who served with distinction in the Civil War, as a member of a Missouri cavalry regiment. Mr. and Mrs. Abeel have five sons, whose names are here entered, with respective ages at time of this writing, in December 1903: Charles Wallace, fourteen; Verne Waldo, twelve; Paul Jordan, six; Clyde Ambrose, four; and Orley, one.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.