Person:Thomas Hall (169)

[Includes headstone photo. Very worn and difficult to read.]

Name Issue Date Meridian State County Twp Range Section Acres
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Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Rush 12-N 10-E 25 320a
Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Rush 12-N 10-E 2 134.92a
Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Rush 12-N 10-E 26 80a
Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Rush 12-N 10-E 2 131.56a
Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Decatur 12-N 10-E 36 320a
Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Decatur 11-N 10-E 6 80a
Thomas E Hall 6 Dec 1821 2nd PM Indiana Decatur 11-N 10-E 6 71.52a

Name: Thomas E Hall
Issue Date: 6 Dec 1821
Acres: 320
Meridian: 2nd PM
State: Indiana
County: Decatur
Township: 12-N
Range: 10-E
Section: 36
Accession Number: IN0350__.469
Metes and Bounds: No
Land Office: Brookville
Canceled: No
US Reservations: No
Mineral Reservations: No
Authority: April 24, 1820: Sale-Cash Entry (3 Stat. 566)
Document Number: 559

Name: Thomas E Hall
Issue Date: 6 Dec 1821
Acres: 80
Meridian: 2nd PM
State: Indiana
County: Decatur
Township: 11-N
Range: 10-E
Section: 6
Accession Number: IN0350__.471
Metes and Bounds: No
Land Office: Brookville
Canceled: No
US Reservations: No
Mineral Reservations: No
Authority: April 24, 1820: Sale-Cash Entry (3 Stat. 566)
Document Number: 561

Name: Thomas E Hall
Issue Date: 6 Dec 1821
Acres: 71.52
Meridian: 2nd PM
State: Indiana
County: Decatur
Township: 11-N
Range: 10-E
Section: 6
Accession Number: IN0350__.472
Metes and Bounds: No
Land Office: Brookville
Canceled: No
US Reservations: No
Mineral Reservations: No
Authority: April 24, 1820: Sale-Cash Entry (3 Stat. 566)
Document Number: 562

...Early in the spring of 1820, a number of families settled in the Clarksburg and Springhill neighborhoods, among them Dr. Andrew Rankin, David Martin, Cornelius Cain and Andrew Rankin. About the same time Seth Lowe and William Custer settled in the Kingston neighborhood.

From the date of the first entry to the end of the year there were eighty-nine land entries. Some of these were for as much as half a section, but most of them were eighty-acre tracts. The entries this year. by township, follow :

Fugit township — John Hicklin, Nathan Lewis, John Schultz, Robert Lochridge, John Lochridge, William Henderson, George Kline, George Bryson, Edward Jackman, Jesse Robinson, William Penny, Griffe Griffiths, Cornelius Cain, George Craig, John Short, Jesse Cain, John Davison, Moses Wyley, Richard Tyner, James Henderson, George Cowan, Joseph Henderson, David Martin, William Lindsey, Joseph K. Rankin, Thomas Martin, Thomas Thorp, Adam Rankin, Martin Logan, Alex Logan, James Logan, Robert Imlay, Daniel Swem, Elias Jarrard, Thomas E. Hall, Charles Collett, William Payden, James Hobbs, David Stout, James Saunders and Joseph Hopkins. ...

Year: 1850; Census Place: Washington, Rush, Indiana; Roll: M432_170; Page: 502B; Image: 267
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248 252 Thomas Hall 62 M Farmer 3200 Penn
248 252 Matilda Hall 55 F --- --- Penn
248 252 W S Hall 24 M Farmer --- --- Ind
248 252 John F Hall 22 M Physician --- --- Ind
248 252 Sarah A Hall 20 F --- --- Ind
248 252 Thomas S Hall 17 M Farmer --- Ind

Thomas Hall died at his residence in Washington Township, Rush County, Indiana, on Sabbath morning, July 27th, 1862, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Thomas was the second son and fourth child of Joseph Hall, who was for two years a soldier in the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. Joseph Hall soon after the war moved from New Jersey to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, near Uniontown, at the foot of Laurel Hill, where the subject of this sketch was born on the 27th day of May, 1788. In 1796 the family emigrated to Hamilton County, Ohio, purchased and settled on a piece of land in what was known as Sim's Purchase. After making some improvements, he discovered that there could not be obtained a valid title, and gave it up, losing nearly all that they had paid and their improvements.

They then obtained and settled on a small tract of land in Butler County, Ohio, about the year 1798. In the year 1803, Joseph the father, died ; the eldest brother of Thomas (Stephen), being about twenty-one years of age, the charge of the family, to a considerable extent, devolved upon Thomas, and he remained with them until 1812, when he volunteered in the United States service, and rendezvoused at Dayton, Ohio. During the year, he was engaged in several battles, the particulars of which the writer does not directly recollect, except the battle of Brownstown.

Sometime in the month of August, Major Van Horn, with two hundred men, was sent to escort Captain Brush through with a provision train. On the first night out, there was an alarm raised that proved to be a false one, which induced Major Van Horn to believe that he had with him some that were cowardly, and when he got them in marching order next morning he told them that if there were any of them that could not stand the smell of gunpowder, if they would step up and show themselves, they could go back to the main army, when ten actually stepped out, and accordingly went back. The one hundred and ninety proceeded on until about noon, when they were fired upon by about four times their number of British and Indians who were concealed in the woods, on the opposite of a small prairie which they suffered the little band to get fairly into before they fired. They were then eighteen miles from the main army, and had to retreat the best they could. The enemy followed the five miles and fired on them continually, killing and wounding seventeen ; while they killed and wounded between forty and fifty of the enemy as they learned afterwards from one of the Girtys who had command of five hundred Indians on that day. Girty told them that their riflemen shot like devils, hitting an Indiana somewhere almost every shot. They were all shortly afterwards surrendered by General Hull to the British general, Brock, as prisoners of war and soon parceled and sent home.

On the fourth day of March 1813, he was married to Matilda, daughter of Aaron and Elizabeth Shrader, who were living then two miles east of Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio. They emigrated in February, 1818, to Fayette County, Indiana, and settled eight miles northwest of Connorsville, where they suffered considerable loss on account of the Indians that then inhabited that part of the country. They removed from there in January 1832, to his late residence in Washington Township, and, as he had done on all previous removals, settled in the woods and commenced removing the forest.

They had thirteen children, nine of whom lived to the age of men and women. His wife, seven children, and a number of grandchildren, together with a host of friends an acquaintances, are left to mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend. His father had eight children and he [Thomas] survived them all. Though he was always on the frontier or in some settlement that was new, and schools inconvenient or hard to obtain while his children were growing up, he gave them a sufficient education to enable them to do almost any common business, while two are practicing physicians of considerable skill and practice.

He was a lifelong Democrat, never in favor of departing in the least from a strict construction of the Constitution, therefore was never sectional. For the last thirty years of his life he suffered more or less from disease of the kidneys, and for the last ten years, had to take medicine nearly all of the time to enable him to keep up. He died, as he had lived ("one of the noblest of God's handiworks"), a Christian and an honest man.

We feel unwilling to allow this opportunity to escape without joining our voice in the tribute of praise to this truly good man. We knew Mr. Hall personally ; a better citizen, or a more worthy upright man no country ever had. He was, indeed, the noblest work of God, an honest man, whose life of toil had been spent in the service of his country, no only on the battlefield, but in those bloodless yet nobler pursuits that cause the wilderness "to bloom a rose." There are the men who have built up this great country, and made it what it was a short time ago and what it would have been today, an enduring monument of prosperity and wealth, of unity and strength, if their counsels had been followed.

The deceased was the father of William S. Hall, Esq., and Dr. Hall, of Washington Township in this county, and of Dr. Hall of Greenfield. After a well spent life he has gone to his great reward, where the weary are at rest. May the good example he has left behind him bear its fruits among his family and his neighbors.

Fond memory will
On thee, with sacred, sad delight may dwell ;
So pure so blest thy life, that death alone
Could make more perfect happiness thine own.