David Abercrombie (1716?-c.1780) appears in court records at Newbern, North Carolina, beginning in December 1781 until 1788. In these, James McConnell, administrator of the estate of David Abercrombie, attempts to recover goods left for David Abercrombie and David Woodbury at Newbern about December 1780. These goods -- fine linen, tablecloths, thread, handkerchiefs, shoes, tea, writing paper, locks and hinges, cloth, silk stockings, beaver hats, soap, candles, flour, bottles of Porter -- had been left with Eunice Carruthers and Mrs. Fulford by John Cottrel [Cottrell/Cottrall/Cotterell], who after he heard that Abercrombie and Woodbury died at "Charlestown" tried to get the goods from Carruthers to send them to "relations of Abercrombie & Woodbury," but was told that the goods were taken by the British. This was during the American Revolution, and 1780 was the the year that Charleston, South Carolina fell to the British.

The identity of this David Abercrombie is unknown, but he may have been the brother of the Philadelphia sea captain James Abercrombie (1717-1760) who mentioned his brother David, born in 1716 at Dundee, Scotland, in his will. The sea captain's son, James Abercrombie (1758-1841), was a merchant at Philadelphia from 1783 until 1793 before becoming an Episcopal minister there. And based on the goods named in the court records, it appears that David was a merchant.

Parish records for Dundee, Scotland, where the sea captain James Abercrombie and his brother David were born, show that in 1752 David Abercromby and Christian Dick had an illegitimate son, John Abercromby, baptized at Carmyllie, Dundee, Scotland.

It is interesting that Doctor [George] Dick treated William Abercromby (1723-1741), younger brother of the South Carolina attorney general, before William died near Georgetown, South Carolina in 1741. Dr. George Dick appears in many South Carolina records in the mid-1700s. In 1739 "Doc'r George Dicks" petitioned the South Carolina Council for 550 acres, and in 1743 George Dick, "Practioner in Physick [doctor]," was married to Mary Allein by the Rev. John Fordyce at Prince Frederick Parish, South Carolina.

Dr. Dick must have been known to William Abercromby's (1723-1741) mother, Mary Duff Abercromby, in Scotland because she mentioned "Dr. Dick" by name in a letter to her daughter Helen relaying news from her son James (1708-1775) in "Carolina" of William's illness and death in 1741. According to old parish registers, George Dick, son of William Dick and Isabel Morison, was baptized in 1710 at Alloa parish, Clackmannanshire, Scotland -- the attorney general's home parish -- and his sister, Christian Dick, was baptized at nearby Alva, Stirling, Scotland in 1717. But it is unknown if she was the Christian Dick, mother of John Abercromby baptized at Dundee in 1752.

Also, a marriage between David Abercrombie and Margaret Swinton was registered at St. Martin in the Fields Parish, Westminster, London in 1778. James Abercromby, the former South Carolina attorney general, was living at St. Martin in the Fields in 1747 when he appointed attorneys to dispose of his property in South Carolina. In 1740 the attorney general sold 5,000 acres of land in South Carolina to Hugh Swinton, brother of William Swinton. And in 1741 "James Abercrombie, Esq.," probably the attorney general, was one of the executors of the will, made in South Carolina, of William Swinton, the surveyor who laid out Georgetown, South Carolina. William Swinton's will mentioned a daughter, Margaret, under 21 years of age and unmarried, and a sister, Margaret Swinton.

But it is unknown if these David Abercrombies were the same man.