John Joseph Abercromby [1773-1808] was taken from Scotland by his mother, who fled with him when he was six months old on account of her Catholic religion and educated him at the Jesuit College at Douai, French Flanders, according to his daughter, Ernestine.

The birth and death dates of John Joseph Abercromby are unknown, but he may have been born about the time of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion in Scotland.

He was newly arrived at Charleston, South Carolina in March 1773 as a well paid violinist for the St. Cecilia Society when Josiah Quincy, Jr. (1744-1775) of Boston, on a visit to Charleston, described him in his journal after attending a concert as "a Frenchman just arrived...[who] can't speak a word of English," but who "played a first fiddle and solo incomparably, better than any I ever heard."

In Charleston John Joseph Abercromby was a member of the St. Andrew’s Society from 1773 to 1775. The St. Andrew's Society is a social and charitable organization primarily for men of Scottish descent.

In January 1775 he advertised in the SC Gazette that he had opened a dancing school "to teach young Ladies and Gentlemen the Minuet, Minuet Dauphin, Minuet by four, Louvre, Rigadoon, English Country Dances, Paspied, Bretagne, New Cotillon, Allemande, and other fashionable Dances" and taught guitar in Charleston while residing at "Mrs. Deveaux's opposite the White Meeting."

On 22 October 1775 John Abercromby witnessed the will of Moses Mitchell (?-1775) at Charleston and a year later, on 4 January 1777, married Mitchell’s widow, Sarah Hinckley Mitchell (?-1787) at St. Philip's Parish, Charleston. Sarah's brother, William Hinckley (?-1780), owned a lot in Georgetown, South Carolina two blocks from James Abercromby's lot there. Hinckley named his sister, Ann Abercromby, in his will, made at Charleston in 1780.

In February 1777, after his marriage to the widow Sarah Mitchell, John Abercromby again advertised that he continued to teach dancing at boarding schools and had opened a public dancing school at "the Playhouse," taught guitar and violin "at private hours as usual," and he "may be spoke with at his house in Union-street, next door to Charles Pinckney, Esq." -- likely the home of the deceased Moses Mitchell.

Between 1774 and 1802 many notices of musical concerts in Charleston newspapers featured John Abercromby as a performer.

Soon after marriage to Sarah Mitchell he sailed for Europe, leaving Sarah and her Mitchell children in Charleston, returning about a year later with the coat of arms he had registered at Edinburgh, Scotland on 10 August 1778 that named his ancestors, stating that "John Joseph Abercrombie was eldest son of Alexander Abercrombie, Esquire and Ernestine, daughter of James D’herent of the province of Arras in Flanders, which Alexander was son of James Abercrombie, Esquire, an officer in service of the states of Holland and Katherine, daughter of John Thomson, Esquire of Kent, England, which James was son of John Abercrombie of Skeith, Esquire and Mary, daughter of Henry Grant of Auchernack, Esquire, which John was a younger son of the family of Birkenbog, chief of that ancient sirname."

He returned to Charleston in July 1779 from France on the brig Polly.

After Charleston fell to the British in 1780, with Colonel Robert Abercromby (1740-1827), nephew of the former South Carolina attorney general, participating, John Joseph Abercromby performed musical concerts for the occupying British forces.

In 1784 and 1785 John Abercromby was among the "Grand Stewards" for the anniversary celebration of the "Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of the Free and Accepted Masons" of South Carolina.

Two adjacent tracts of land were granted to John Joseph Abercromby on 1 October 1787. These had been surveyed on 3 & 4 September 1787 in the District of Charleston on the southwest side of the Edisto River "about two miles below Good Hope." One of these tracts was for 200 acres and bounded Col. Morris, John Sullivan and Ford's land. The other tract for 177 acres [according to the survey plat, but 117 acres on the corresponding grant] bounded on "the said John Joseph Abercrombie, Ford, John Sullivan and land laid out for William Cowell and vacant land." No later conveyance of this land has been found.

In Charleston, John Joseph Abercromby was sued six times between 1778 and 1801 by different individuals, mostly for not paying his debts. His step-son, John Hinckley Mitchell (1767-1832), sued him in 1789 for mismanaging Moses Mitchell’s estate after the death of Sarah Hinckley Mitchell Abercromby in 1787. In August 1792 the sheriff advertised a sale for a lot, No. 29 Union Street, Charleston, to be sold as property of "John Abercrombie." And also in late 1792 "John Joseph Abercromby, late of Charleston," assigned all his property to D. Desaussure, in trust for the benefit of his creditors.

On 7 January 1791 at Pon Pon Parish near Charleston, John Joseph Abercromby married again to Sarah Denormandie, widow of Christopher Peter (?-1790). Christopher Peter was one of the patriots the British exiled to St. Augustine after the occupation of Charleston.

John and Sarah Denormandie Peter Abercromby had at least five children: Alexander (c.1791-?); Ernestine (1792-after 1889); Harriet (1793-1796); John Joseph, Jr. (1798-1877), a West Point graduate from Tennessee and a Union general during the Civil War; and James (1799-?). Catherine Abercromby who was buried from St. Philip's Parish, Charleston, South Carolina on 21 June 1800 may have been their daughter also.

After their 1791 marriage John and Sarah moved frequently -- to Bucks County, Pennsylvania where she had relatives from whom they purchased land in 1791, but sold it back in 1792, to Trenton, New Jersey where their son Alexander was baptized, to Baltimore, Maryland where Ernestine, John Joseph, Jr. and James were baptized. But they returned to Charleston, South Carolina on occasion.

In the last lawsuit filed against John Joseph Abercromby at Charleston, South Carolina on 7 January 1801 by George Nicholls for unlawfully detaining three slaves the property of George Nicholls, formerly property of Christopher Peter, Nicholls said that "John Abercrombie has been for some time itinerent in different parts of America and is indigent and without any means of recompensing this deponent for such property and this deponent is afraid [Abercromby] means to secrete and make away with the same, or put the same out of reach of Justice."

In June 1804, after some time away from Charleston, Abercromby again advertised in the Charleston [South Carolina] Times that "having just arrived...he intends teaching Piano Guitar" as well as violin and the French language.

In August 1804 John J. Abercromby and his wife Sarah sold the 1,000 acres on the Waccamaw River [now in Horry County, South Carolina] that had been granted to James Abercromby in 1735.

In 1808 the Charleston [South Carolina] Times ran an ad for a remedy for worms that included a testimonial letter from John J. Abercromby of No. 28 Bridge-street, Baltimore. This is the last record found for John Joseph Abercromby.