My Genealogy Hound

RALPH H. HALL, has been one of the most extensive farmers and providers of fat cattle for the market in this section, and is now enjoying a hale and serene old age, surrounded by the fruits of his success. He is a son of Ahira and Laura (Palmer) Hall, and was born in Portland, Chautauqua county, New York, November 3, 1821. James Hall, his grandfather, was born in Upbridge, Massachusetts, April 19, 1757, was a farmer all his life, and owned a large tract of land at that place, which he tilled up to the time of his death, which occurred July 29, 1835, in Croydon, New Hampshire. He served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and fought under General George Washington throughout that world-famous struggle for the liberty and the rights of man, and after the war drew a pension. In religion he was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and among the most influential. James Hall was married at the age of nineteen to Huldah Cooper, aged sixteen, a niece of Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and by this marriage had twelve children, seven sons and five daughters: Abijah, Ahira (father), Sherman, James, Carlton, Albina, Lyman, Chloe, married to Menassah Sawyer; Huldah, married Elijah Darling; Dilla, married Benjamin White; Sarah, died in infancy; and an infant. The mother of these children died in 1847, February 19th, aged eighty-eight years, and was buried at Croydon, New Hampshire. John Palmer, who was the maternal grandfather of Ralph H. Hall, was born at Tolland, Connecticut, in 1755, and when quite a young man moved to Charlotte, Vermont, where he took up a large tract of land, all forest, which he cleared, improved and tilled until his death in 1835, and the house he built is still standing. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war under General George Washington and was awarded a pension. In religion he was a member of the Baptist church of Charlotte, of which he was a deacon for several years. John Palmer was married to Ruth Chapman, by whom he had ten children, four sons and six daughters: John, James, William, Chapman, Malinda, who married Zimri Hill; Abigail, who married Edward Allen; Laura (mother); Ruth, who married Ancinius Jones; Charlotte and Lovica. The mother of these children died in 1827, aged sixty years. Ahira Hall (father) was born in Croydon, Sullivan county, New Hampshire, December 21, 1784, and remained on the farm until he was twenty-one years old, when he emigrated to Charlotte, Vermont, where he remained but a few years when he removed to Massena, St. Lawrence county, New York, where he took up a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land, all of which was unbroken forest. At the breaking out of the war of 1812, he was among the first who were drafted into the service in the army of the War of 1812, and served throughout the war. His wife determined not to stay alone in this wilderness, packed all the effects she could upon a horse, and buried all else in the ground, and with her three children returned to her father’s home in Vermont. In October, 1815, after the close of the war, Mr. Hall came to Chautauqua county, journeying thirty-one days through the wilderness, and occupied a log house owned by Abel Palmer, which, with fifty acres of land, came into his possession at the death of Mr. Palmer, the land being located in what is now the town of Portland and near the Brocton line, and is now owned by T. S. Moss. In politics Mr. Hall was a whig, and for fourteen consecutive years was elected justice of the peace on that ticket.

He was a man of uncommon ability and enjoyed the confidence of the community. In religion he was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he was also steward for a long time. Ahira Hall was married in Charlotte, Vermont, October 18, 1807, to Laura Palmer, by whom he had fourteen children, six sons and eight daughters, twelve of whom reached maturity: Ezra, died in infancy; John, a farmer in Fredonia, who married Mrs. Jane Ann Miller; Albina, a Methodist clergyman, who married Nancy Quigley; Ruth, who married Richard Reynolds, a farmer in Portland; James, a physician in Portland, who married Caroline Herrick; Laura, married to Charles Fay, a farmer in Portland; Samuel, a farmer in Pomfret, married to Miranda Kip; Ralph H.; Nancy, married to Henry Flint, a farmer in Portland; Livia, married John Green, a merchant in Sherman; Lodoiska, married William Martin, a farmer in Portland; Sarah, married John Merritt, a druggist in Silver Creek; Jane, married Frank Ellis, an undertaker in Forestville; and Chloe, died in infancy. Ahira Hall died February 24, 1858, in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried at Brocton, and his widow died December 18, 1863, in her seventy-third year.

Ralph H. Hall was educated in the public schools of Portland, and attended the high school at Jamestown and the academy at Painesville, Ohio, for several terms. After leaving school in 1842, he became a teacher and taught twelve terms, being principal of a school in Westfield one year, and two years in Silver Creek. He exchanged the pedagogue’s chair for the business of a cattle broker, and continued in the latter vocation until 1870. In 1852 he and his brother John bought a farm of two hundred and twenty-five acres of land in Pomfret, this county, and added to it until they had reared and fattened their cattle for market. Mr. Hall is a director of the Fredonia National Bank and one of the finance committee of that institution, and was a member of the board of directors of the Oswego National Bank, Oswego, Labette county, Kansas, until it was sold out. In religion he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church at Fredonia, in which he has always held some office, and is a member of the board of control of Allegheny college, at Meadville, Pennsylvania. In 1880 he was a delegate to the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church at Cincinnati, Ohio. He has aided in building two churches on the frontier through the Freedmen’s Aid Society, one in Nebraska and the other in Dakota. He is a very intelligent, agreeable man, very highly respected by the community in which he dwells, and his wife is a most estimable and refined lady.

Ralph H. Hall was married March 29, 1852, to Caroline Hall, a daughter of James and Ruth (Hall) Hall, of Newport, Sullivan county, New Hampshire, her father being a farmer there. This marriage resulted in the birth of one son, who died in infancy.