The earliest semigroup paper? (Q1905973)

In the early nineteenth century, \textit{N. H. Abel} [J. Reine Angew. Math. (then Crelle's Journal) 1, 11-15 (1826)] gave a result which can be restated in modern terminology as the following theorem on interval semigroups. Let \(f\) be a commutative semigroup operation on an open real interval \(I\) with continuous first partial derivatives which vanish nowhere on \(I \times I\). Then there exists an order preserving isomorphism \(\Psi : I \to J \subset \mathbb{R}\) with continuous positive derivative, where \(J\) is an open interval subsemigroup of \((\mathbb{R}^+)\). The author points out that this result influenced the formulation of Hilbert's Fifth Problem, and argues that Abel's paper may well be the earliest on semigroup theory.