My Genealogy Hound

ELIJAH E. HALE, a farmer of the town of Ellicott who has followed black-smithing for seventy years, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, October 26th, 1805, and is the son of Alfred and Lucy (Ensign) Hale. Alfred Hale was born in Conway, Massachusetts, and removed to Pittsfield, that State, where he died in August 1817. He was a shoe-maker by trade and a whig in politics. His wife Lucy (Ensign) Hale was a Presbyterian and died in Pittsfield in September, 1816. Mr. and Mrs. Hale were the parents of three children, of whom two grew to maturity: Elijah E. and Sarah E. (deceased), wife of Oliver Arms, also dead. Mrs. Hale was a daughter of Capt. Elijah Ensign (maternal grandfather), who was the first white male child born in the town of Pittsfield, of which he was a life-long resident. He was an extensive farmer for his day, an earnest and active federalist in politics and was a captain in the Massachusetts militia. He married Phoebe Holt, by whom he had nine children, five sons and four daughters. Two of these sons, Thomas and John, served as soldiers in the war of 1812.

Elijah E. Hale received his education in the common schools of Massachusetts and at 15 years of age was apprenticed to learn the trade of blacksmith, which he has successfully followed for seventy years. He went from Pittsfield to Hancock and from there in 1830 to Fluvanna, which he left three years later to remove to his present farm. He is a republican in politics and served for some time in the Massachusetts State militia, in which he was appointed on September 11th, 1828, by Gov. Lincoln, as quartermaster with the rank of lieutenant. He served as a deacon in the Christian church of Ellicott until it ceased to exist.

On November 27th, 1825, he married Eliza A., daughter of Major William Acocks, a blacksmith and whig, who was a deacon of the Baptist church and a militia officer in Massachusetts, from which he removed to Campton, Kane county, Illinois, where he died August 10th, 1854, aged seventy-seven years. He married Phoebe Baker of Lanesboro, Massachusetts, and they had four children: Eliza A., James L., not dead; Phoebe G., who died some years ago, and Wm. B. Major Acocks was born in Devonshire, England, where he was pressed to serve in the British array. He was one of the soldiers surrendered at Saratoga and after being sent to Boston as a prisoner, he enlisted in the American army. After the Revolutionary war he married a Mrs. Lewis (nee Grant) by whom he had two children: Major William, and Thomas who was killed by a falling tree at Elmira, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Hale have two children: William F., born July 15th, 1827, who was graduated from Jamestown academy, taught ten terms in the public schools, married Mary A. Stillson and is now engaged in farming for his father; and Milton A., who married Annetta Arnold of the town of Ellery, and is engaged in farming.