Abel Street, originally Abel Road, was named for Henry C. Abel, who lost his mother, Mary Ann Marks, in 1860, when he was about 12; he migrated to California from Wisconsin in 1869, when he was 21.
Henry first arrived in Stockton, where he worked for a surveyor. He next got a job on the Warm Springs ranch of Josiah Stanford (elder brother of Leland), where he met his Irish wife-to-be, Margaret Mulhearn, whom he married at Mission San Jose on April 19, 1872.
After Henry Abel settled in Milpitas in 1874, he sent for his brothers and sisters: George, Emily, Edwin, Henrietta, and Anna. Henrietta and Anna respectively married into the Cropley and Evans ranching families,who have left their names on other area roads. He went into the meat business, where he prospered for the next forty years. His shop was on Main Street in Milpitas, south of the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.
Henry Abel also acquired a farm of 500 acres on Trimble Road, southwest of Milpitas, where he had 500 dairy cows, according to a newspaper article in 1900.
Henry Abel bought the home of Matthew Dixon, and with teams of horses moved it south around 1910 to a lot beside the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on Main Street, where the family lived for a long period. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Abel had a family of five children: William, Gertrude, Grace, Arthur, and George.
At that time, Henry was one of the major growers of asparagus and was also serving on the school board.While he and his brother Edwin were operating the butcher shop, his sons were running deliveries around town and out into the countryside as far as Calaveras Valley (east Milpitas hills). His daughter, Gertrude, became a teacher and taught for a time in Berryessa. The Abel Elementary School was named after her.
In 1888, Henry Abel and the Curtner brothers, (sons of Henry Curtner) went into partnership (Abel & Curtner Livestock Company) in cattle ranching in Nevada. Henry Abel’s sons were to become involved in this huge ranch which spread out over parts of both Humboldt and Elko counties until it was disposed of in 1941.
Henry Abel passed away on January 29, 1917, a few years after the death of his devoted wife on September 29, 1913. After his father’s death, George Abel managed the Milpitas portion of the Abel estate, the 500 acres of which were devoted to grain, hay, vegetables, and fruit, thirty-five acres being in pears.
While he was managing the ranches in Nevada, George Abel was married to Miss May Staunton in 1914. They had two children, George, a Gonzalez area cattle rancher, and Margaret, who became Mrs. John Donovan, who with her husband developed Serra Shopping Center on Abel Street in the 1970s.