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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published by John M. Gresham & Co. in 1891.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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JOHN A. HALL. The great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Elisha Hall, who emigrated to Hopkinton, Mass., from the vicinity of Boston about 1740. He married Elizabeth Young in 1742, and died in Hopkinton, February 25, 1794. He had eight children, and was by occupation a farmer. John and William were the only sons of Elisha that grew to maturity.

William Hall, the grandfather of the subject, is the only male progenitor of this branch of the Hall family of which the family has any knowledge. He was born June, 1753, in Hopkinton. He married Abigail Pease, of Upton, Mass., August 29, 1782, and emigrated to Wardsboro (now Dover), Vermont, at an early age, and lived there until he died September 28, 1828. He was a farmer by occupation, and served in the Revolutionary war in Capt. Baker’s Upton company, and afterwards held a commission as captain in the Vermont Militia. He had a large family of seven sons and five daughters. Six of the sons, Samuel, James, William, Josiah, Elisha and Orris, emigrated to Chautauqua county, New York, and the neighboring county, Warren, Pa., between the years 1812 and 1820. Nearly all these brothers engaged in the lumber business, and operated extensively on the Allegheny and other rivers tributary to the Mississippi.

Samuel Hall (father) came to this county in 1814. He bought land in the town of Busti and cleared up a farm which has been in the possession of his descendants ever since. He had seven children, five sons and two daughters. He died in 1859.

John A. Hall was born in Wardsboro, Vermont, December 27, 1813. He was six months old when his father emigrated to the wilderness of western New York. In his early boyhood he shared the labor of the farm with his father and brothers, and at the age of sixteen left home and went to Warren county, Pa., where he embarked in commercial pursuits, and remained about eighteen years. Ten years of this time he was postmaster at Warren.

In March, 1835, he married Emily Perry, also a native of Vermont, whose family removed to Chautauqua county in the early days of its settlement, and to their union were born seven children: Marian E., Ann E., Edward L., Henri, John A., Jr., Irene A. and Frederick P.

In 1846, at the solicitation of his father, whose health was failing, he gave up his business in Warren at a very considerable sacrifice of his financial prospects, and went back with his family to the old homestead to take care of his aged father and mother, an act of pure filial devotion. During the civil war he held the position of clerk of the committee on claims in the United States House of Representatives in Washington, D. C., and rendered willing assistance to many soldiers and their families while at the seat of government. Wielding a trenchant pen and having a large knowledge in political matters, he wrote during this time much for the press. His letters, under the nom de plume of “Paul Pry,” to various papers were extensively read and copied. In 1872 he moved from Busti to Jamestown, engaging in business for a few years, and in 1876 he purchased of Davis H. Waite, the Jamestown Journal, which under the efficient management of himself and son, Frederick P., soon took highest rank among the newspapers of western New York, and secured a large circulation. Mr. Hall, while always a public man, because a leader and maker of public opinion, was never an office seeker; though often urged to be a candidate for public favors, he never would put himself forward. He did, however, serve on the board of supervisors of Chautauqua county three years, and at the time of his death was filling his second term on the board of education for the city of Jamestown. He was a man of the strictest integrity, never flinching in the advocacy of whatever he believed to be right and true. His death occurred January 29, 1886.

Frederick P. Hall, youngest son of John A., was born in Busti, in November, 1859. He received his education mainly in the public schools of Jamestown, and when his father purchased the Journal, in 1876, assumed the business management of the establishment. In a short time he was taken into partnership, and after a very few years, owing to his father’s ill health, almost the entire management of the office devolved upon him. By his enterprise and business tact these papers have secured their present high standing and influence. In September, 1883, Mr. Hall was married to Lucy H., daughter of Levant L. Mason, of Jamestown. They have three children: Henri Mason, born December 19, 1884; Levant Mason, born December 25, 1886; and Frederick Perry, Jr., born April 7, 1891. Mr. Hall is at present (1891) one of the executive committee of the New York State Press Association, and holds several places of trust in the business, church and benevolent enterprises of the city of Jamestown.

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This family biography is one of 658 biographies included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published in 1891. 

View additional Chautauqua County, New York family biographies here: Chautauqua County, New York Biographies

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