 European Americans set up an active trading post in Abbeville in Alabama Territory early in 1819.The first settler gateway to the wiregrass region was at Franklin, located fourteen miles west of Abbeville.Locals say that the name derives from the Muscogee name for Abbey Creek, "Yatta Abba", meaning "dogwood tree grove.”

Abbeville was designated as the Henry County seat in 1833; the seat had previously been Columbia.