SAMUEL HALL was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, October 5, 1695, the second son and third child of the Honorable John Hall, of Wallingford (one of the Governor's Assistants from 1722 to 1730), and grandson of Samuel and Hannah (Walker) Hall, among the first settlers of that town. His mother was Mary, daughter of John Lyman, of Hartford. His youngest brother, Elihu, graduated in 1731.
In the month after his graduation, a majority of the Trustees voted to remove the College to New Haven, and in the following winter Mr. Hall appears to have joined Mr. Elisha Williams, at Wethersfield, in the work of instructing those students who had seceded under the influence of the Trustees living in Hartford. He continued thus employed until the spring of 1719, when all the Wethersfield Scholars returned to New Haven. He subsequently studied theology with the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton. As early as May, 1718, the General Assembly received a petition from the inhabitants of the west part of Wallingford, asking to be made into a separate parish; but it was not until five years later that the Assembly saw fit to grant the request. In May, 1724, the parish was named New Cheshire, and in October of the same year liberty was granted them to settle a minister. Accordingly, a church of eleven men and fifteen or sixteen women was gathered, November 25, and Mr. Hall, who had begun to preach for them as early as the winter of 1722–3, and was called to the pastorate in December, 1723, was ordained pastor, December 9, 1724, the Rev. Samuel Whittelsey (Y. C. 1705), pastor of the parent church, preaching the sermon. The parish then contained thirty five families, and remained under Mr. Hall's care until his death, the Rev. John Foot (Y. C. 1765) being ordained colleague-pastor, March 12, 1767.
Mr. Hall preached his last sermon in October, 1775, and died in New Cheshire (incorporated in 1780 by the name of Cheshire), “after a short but very distressing illness,” February 26, 1776, aged 80. He had lived to bury all those who originally formed the church over which he was ordained.
He married, January 12, 1724–5, Ann, eldest daughter of Governor Jonathan Law (Harv. 1695), of Milford.
She was born August 1, 1702, and died August 23, 1775, aged 73.
Their children were eight sons and five daughters; of the sons, four died in infancy, and two, Samuel and Elisha, were graduated at this College, in 1754 and 1764 respectively. One of the daughters married the Rev. Warham Williams (Y. C. 1745), and another married her father's colleague.
In May, 1732, the small-pox broke out in the center of his society, at which time about one hundred and twenty-four persons, or one-third of his whole parish, were infected with the disease, and some seventeen died; the General Assembly at their next session granted £50 out of the public treasury for the relief of the stricken families.
In this connection he published: ...
Mr. Hall was a vigorous “Old Light” in theology, and the chief promoter of what was known in 1758-9 as the “Wallingford Controversy,” being at the head of the objectors to the settlement in that parish of the Rev. James Dana on account of surmised Arminianism; he became reconciled to Mr. Dana in 1771. Mr. Hall's church in Cheshire became during his lifetime one of the largest in New England,—containing between four and five hundred communicants.
