My Genealogy Hound

JUSTUS HALL, deceased. He was born in Orange county, Vt., July 7, 1811. When a child of three years his parents left that locality and lived a few years in New York State, and from there he moved to Washington county, Ohio, where our subject grew to manhood and learned the carpenter’s trade. He lived at the paternal home until he was twenty-one years old, when he launched out on his own account. He first engaged as drover, taking cattle to the Detroit market. In 1834 he went to Indiana and engaged at milling near Lima. He was married three years later to Miss Electa Caswell, a native of New York. In 1839 he moved to Illinois and purchased a large farm in Bureau county, where he lived, pursuing the avocation of a farmer until the gold excitement on the Pacific slope. This caused him to go overland to the gold fields of California in 1850, where he remained until 1853, when he returned to his farm and family in Illinois. Two years later they moved to Bremer county Iowa, where he kept a hotel and managed a 300 acre farm until 1860, when he became a citizen of Jasper county. Mo. He located at Avilla where he erected the first hotel ever kept in that village, acting as host of that hostelry four years, in the meantime improving a tract of land south of Avilla, which he purchased shortly after his coming to the county. He moved upon his land in 1876, thereafter devoting his time to farming and stock-raising until his death, which occurred Feb. 10, 1883. He was buried with Masonic rites, to which order he was much attached during life. His widow, three sons and three daughters, survive him. The names of his children are Lavina, wife of H. Lees; Fidelia, wife of J. J. Stemmons; Alice, wife of William Somers; George W., William W., and Frederick U. During life Mr. Hall was a man of extraordinary energy and physical force. Though of limited education, he possessed a remarkable business talent and leaves to his heirs a fine property as the result of his enterprise and ability.