Joshua Plummer Abbott of Antioch (1840-1912) was an attorney, judge, newspaper proprietor, and state senator who owned NET&S stock and a mine claim in Mineral King in 1875. Born in New Hampshire, he was raised as a farmer. In 1858, at the age of 18, however, he left to pursue advanced education and spent some time in Dartmouth College. In 1863 he went to California, where he taught school for a year. The next year, he embarked on an unidentified "speculative enterprise" in Idaho which failed when he and his partners were involved in a deadly altercation with the local tribe. He returned to California, studied law, entered the bar in 1866, and set up practice in Antioch. When the fraudulent New England Tunnel and Smelting Company recruited businessmen and  prospective laborers from Antioch to fund and work in the Mineral King Mining District in 1875, he joined them and located a mine claim with a partner. His involvement lasted only one year, however, and he returned to Antioch to focus on politics and increasing his financial wealth.