Patrick County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Hall, Sr., Henry Harden May 29, 1823 - March 21, 1915
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ron Martin cindyandron@bellsouth.net December 21, 2021, 6:50 pm

Source: https://www.angelfire.com/folk/goblintown_mill/, Pearl Hall Story, and Ancestry information
Author: Ron Martin

 The life story of Henry Harden Hall, Sr. has its genesis on May 29, 1823 as he 
was born to Roland Perry Hall and Elizabeth Rakes Hall in Patrick County, 
Virginia. 
  At the age of 22 years ago, he married Ruth Exoney Turner, 23, the daughter of 
Lewis Turner and Cynthia Foster Turner on October 13, 1845.   The proceeded to 
have six children in addition to raising their niece.   The story of Henry 
Harden Hall and Ruth Exoney Turner's life as well as his second wife Martha 
Elizabeth Ross has been so well documented by Jack Williamson and Henry and 
Martha's daughter Pearl Lillian Hall that much of their story is being used for 
this biography because the information contained in both articles is incredible.  
The stories are so precise that they need to be used to help recreate this 
story.
  According to the 1850 census, he was a carpenter but his life was about the 
change dramatically.  According to an excellent research article contained on 
https://www.angelfire.com/folk/goblintown_mill/History/History.html that was 
written by Jack Williamson, his father in law purchased 211 acres of land just 
one month prior to his marriage to Cynthia Foster.    She passed away in 1827 
and on February 11, 1840, Lewis deeded 120 of his original 211 acres to his 
daughters Ann Turner and Exoney Turner.  Of course Exoney married Hall in 1845 
who was a sawyer and carpenter employed by her father in the water powered saw 
mill and carpenter shop that he had built on Little Goblintown Creek on the 
northern end of his property.
  According to Williamson's research, he wrote About 1850, Lewis and his son in 
law built a substantial grist mill immediately west of their saw mill and 
carpenter shop. That structure, housing three sets of mill stones and associated 
grain processing equipment as described elsewhere in this paper, was so located 
to use the same water source, and perhaps the same water wheel, as the saw mill 
and carpenter shop equipment. The exact date of the grist mill's completion is 
not known, but the Patrick County Census of 1850 listed Lewis Turner as a 
blacksmith and H.H. Hall as a carpenter, and the 1860 census listed Lewis Turner 
as a miller and H.H. Hall as a cabinet maker [NDPCC #477 and #479]. These 
entries and the hybrid iron and wood construction of the old water wheel 
strongly suggest that date to be sometime in the 1850's.
  Williamson's article goes on to detail the story of Henry Harden Hall and the 
grist mill.  He wrote In 1854, Ann Turner married Blann Hall, both then about 
36 years old. On 4 March 1856, Ann died giving birth to her only child, Exoney 
Ann Hall (1856 - 1922). Ann's sister Exoney and her husband Henry Harden Hall, 
Blann's brother, took in their infant niece, Exoney Ann, as their foster child. 
Three years later, on 11 May 1859, Blann died of pneumonia, orphaning Exoney Ann 
and making the child co-owner of the 120 acres deeded by Lewis Turner to his two 
daughters in 1840. The following year, Henry and his wife initiated a "quiet 
title" suit against their infant niece and foster child, Exoney Ann, to properly 
partition and title the 120 acre joint estate. In its March 1860 session, the 
Patrick County Court [PC Order Book #8] decreed that, "... mutual conveyances 
with special warranty be executed by the parties to each other according to the 
dividing lines as run by Lewis Pedigo surveyor as appears by exhibit file marked 
(D)of the land in the bill". Neither Exhibit (D), nor any corresponding survey 
could be found among the many recorded by Lewis Pedigo in the Patrick County 
Survey Books. The issue lay dormant for ten years. In 1870, pursuant to the 
decree of 1860, the two parties executed "quit claim" deeds to each other. Exony 
Ann relinquished any rights to the mill site and the larger parcel to the south 
where Lewis Turner and the Henry Harden Halls lived [PCDB 18:591], and the Henry 
Harden Halls gave up any claim to the remaining 50 or so acres [PCDB 19:46].
  In yet another excerpt from Williamson's writings, he wrote In 1877, Exoney 
Ann Hall married John Isaac Wood. Four years later, in 1881, the Patrick County 
Land Book (page 27) noted her transfer of the 50 or so acres discussed above to 
her husband, but no corresponding deed could be found in the county records. A 
subsequent tax book entry lists the parcel as containing 66 acres. Exoney Ann 
and John I. had three sons - John Lewis, Murray, and Steven. Murray and Steven 
predeceased their father.   His wife Ruth Exoney Turner Hall passed away on 
April 12, 1886.   Almost two years later, he married 37 year old Martha 
Elizabeth Ross.   They had approximately eight kids including a set of twins but 
only one lived past one year old and that was Miss Pearl Lillian Hall who had an 
amazing life and career serving as a missionary abroad. 
  Williamson goes on to write on his website, Between 1891 and 1909, John I. 
Wood bought up most of the land surrounding the mill site, beginning with the 
purchase of 170 acres on Goblintown Creek from the heirs of E.B.Turner [PCDB 
26:48]. Other purchases included 75 acres in two parcels from David Ross Cox 
[PCDB 28:449 and 31:372], over 200 acres of Elijah Pedigo lands in three tracts 
west and north of the mill site [PCDB 35:163], and 5 acres around the old school 
house on Goblintown Creek and Goblintown Road, now State Route 635 [PCDB 
36:558]. Several of these parcels were jointly owned with his son John L. Wood.
  Williamson's writings about Hall ended with these final transactions when he 
stated that On 6 January 1900 [PCDB 30:183], Henry Harden Hall and Martha Ross 
Hall, his second wife whom he married on 15 January 1888, sold to John I. Wood 
for $150 a one-half interest in "a parcel on which there is now a grist mill on 
the waters of the North Fork of Goblintown Creek containing 5 acres more or less 
and bounded as follows: Beginning on a horn beam on the wagon road thence up the 
hill to a large rock and maple, thence west to the mill race, thence up said 
race to the damn (sic), thence down the creek as it meanders to the wagon road, 
thence with the wagon road to the beginning." Of interest in this deed is 
absence of any reference to a saw mill. In 1911, Henry sold his remaining half 
interest in the mill site to John I. Wood for $300 [PCDB 38:395]. Although that 
deed noted that the mill site was bounded on all sides by lands of John I. Wood, 
there was in fact a small bordering lot which he did not yet own. The then 
"Wood's Mill" continued in operation, at least sporadically, for the following 
penciled inscription remains on one of its grain ducts.
  From a personal standpoint, his daughter Pearl wrote that he was slender, 
five feet ten inches tall, his best weight was 135 pounds, blue eyes, black hair 
which was not completely white at 91, slender hands with flat fingers, an 
artisan's hands probably and a straight thumb, said to denote stubbornness or 
could we say firmness of character.  Also he never lost his hair and always wore 
a beard over the lower part of his face with clean shaven cheeks and lips.  His 
hands and feet were long and slender and almost to the end of his life he wore 
boots of his own making.
  According to Miss Pearl's writings, he was a trial justice of the peace for 
many years and universally respected, was known as Squire Hall, and one person 
said that in spite of his many cases over which he presided, he never made an 
enemy.   Another person said of him, He was the best man I ever knew.  
  Miss Pearl also wrote and he was not a drinking man but he did enjoy a 
coffee lace before breakfast and it was no doubt that he took a sip or two of 
sillibob at weddings and egg nog at Christmas.
  Furthermore she stated that he was not a religious man but he read his Bible, 
kept an open mind and at age 88, he joined the Primitive Baptist Church.    A 
determined man, the ice was broken at the mill race for his baptism and he did 
not catch cold from his immersion in the icy waters.   She took that as a sign 
that God approved.  Based on proximity and the fact that his son Lewis Pinckney 
Hall and his wife Melinda Virginia Stovall Hall were charter members at 
Goblintown Primitive Baptist Church in 1896, one could assume that he joined up 
with that particular church.
  She wrote that has age crept up on him, he gave up many of his occupations, 
rented the land and he gave up milling hence selling the mill.   Daily he kept 
up his daily walk to the mill and gave up all of his furniture making and 
cobbling.  He continued to travel to Stuart until around his 88th birthday to 
attend court whenever court met.   He had an interest in politics and kept up 
with the campaigns both local and nationwide.   He also read his papers with 
unflagging interest.  
  Henry Harden Hall, Sr. passed away on March 21, 1915 at the age of 91 just one 
week after the death of his first daughter Cynthia Thenia Hall Cox and two 
months shy of his birthday.  


Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/patrick/photos/bios/hallsr12nbs.jpg



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