Like his father, Abbott soon became an important member of the Black community in Toronto. From 1873 to 1880, he fought against racially segregated schools as president of the Wilberforce Educational Institute and was appointed coroner for Kent County, Ontario, in 1874, the first Black man to hold that office. Abbott contributed to a local newspaper, the "Chatham Planet", and was associate editor of the "Missionary Messenger", the journal of the local British Methodist Episcopal Church. Abbott was made president of both the Chatham Literary and Debating Society and the Chatham Medical Society in 1878. Abbott moved his medical practice to Dundas, Ontario, in 1881 where he also served in some important community roles including trustee of that community's high school and chairman of the town's internal management committee from 1885 to 1889. He also worked as an administrator for the Dundas Mechanics' Institute.