Hi Cousins, as requested, I am sending the file on Dr. James Hall, it's quite interesting. I am sorry that I can not furnish more information on this Hall family, but this is all the information I have on Dr. James Hall. My line is from John Payton Hall, b 1808 in Macon Co. NC. He migrated in 1844 to McDonald County, MO., where he started a long line of descendants. I would like to show a connection from James Hall to my John Payten Hall but I do not have that information, however, I am working on it. from Harley Rush ===== Notes for James D.D. HALL Reverend James Hall - from notes by Agnes Cleveland Sandifer of Spartanburg, S.C. - given to Wilmina Rowland Smith in 1974 - and to Billie Rowland Smith in 1976, then to Durward Hall then to his daughter, Linda L Hall Ellison who gave them to Harley Rush. -------------------------------------- James Hall, D.D. was the third son of James and Prudence Hall. He was born near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, August 22, 1744. When he was between eight and nine years of age he came with his parents to North Carolina. He spent most of his early life assisting his father on the farm. He was an inventive genius and was especially good in math. He constructed a quadrant with which he a mused himself and his friends by measuring the heights of trees and the distance of objects. Dr. Archibald Henderson, professor of math at the University of North Carolina, has every reason to believe that Dr. Hall made with his own hands a steam engine which pulled a five foot steam boat on an artificial lake near his house. Doctor Henderson, also, believes that this was several years before the successful demonstration of the steamboat on the Hudson River, probably in 1807. Mrs. Mary C. Dalton wrote Mr. E.A. Hall some years before her death that Dr. James Hall always spent a night with them on his trips to Philadelphia to attend the General Assembly. She remembered on one of these visits as he was leaving to resume his trip north, he told her father Col. Placebo Houston to go out with him to his gig. Mrs. Dallton then, a little child, accompanied her father and Dr. Hall to the gig and there Dr. Hall showed them an instrument he had invented and attached to the wheel of his gig (no doubt this was the first speedometer used in this country.) Dr. Hall told Col. Houston it registered six hundred miles on the trip from his home in Bethany to Philadelphia. Little is known of Dr. Hall's early education except he mastered rest of his studies without a teacher until he was twenty six when he entered Crowfield Academy. There he took up his Latin in preparation for college. When he finished at Crowfield, he entered Nassau Hall, (now Princeton). When he graduated in 1774, he was so good in mathematics that after his graduation he was offered the position of teacher of math at Princeton, but he declined the honors as he had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time he went to Crowfield Academy, Dr. Hall was engaged to Eliza Sloan; but when his father decided to prepare him for the ministry he broke the engagement because he did not want to marry her and then leave her alone in a frontier cabin. Doctor Hall possessed all the attributes necessary for a military commander. He was over six feet tall and he had great muscular strength. He was decided in action. Too, he had great moral and spiritual courage. In 1759 he marched at the head of a volunteer company of cavalry raised principally if not wholly from his charge. He was both captain and chaplain of the company that marched to South Carolina when that state was overrun by the British. When General Davidson was killed at Cowans Ford, Dr. Hall was selected as Brigadier General but declined the honor, still feeling his place to be in the pulpit. It has been said of Dr. Hall, that he "prayed like an angel on Sunday and fought like the devil through the week." It was his fortune to be in several skirmishes but not in any large battles. Besides the political welfare of the country, Dr. Hall was also, interested in the education of the young people of his country. He founded Clio's Nursery, about ten miles north of Statesville on Snow Creek. This school was known in that neighborhood as the Latin School house. this school he has superintended, and it ran for years. Many youths were educated there who filled afterwards, important posts of honor and usefulness. After the burning of Clio's N ursery, he built a frame building in the corner of his yard which was eighteen by twenty five feet and was two stories high. This he named "The Academy of the Sciences." Here he gave the southern youth an education equal to what they could obtain in a college. This Academy of the Sciences was a forerunner of the University of North Carolina. It was, also previous to the establishment of the University. It was said to be the best school in the state. This school had the best scientific equipment in the state and, Also, the south. One of the earliest textbooks written in North Carolina was an English Grammar written by Dr. Hall. He gathered the youths of the neighborhood together every Saturday and taught them grammar. He kept copies circulated among members of the class, but after wards the grammar was published and extensively used. Doctor Hall, also devoted a great deal of time to the teaching of theology to the young men that resided in his home and on the second floor of the Academy of the Sciences. He was never married so his widowed sister made her home with him. He was one of the organizers of the Seminary at Princeton. He wanted it located in the South; but when Princeton was selected as the place he gave freely to it of his time. He at one time turned over one thousand dollars he had collected for it. At his death he gave two hundred and fifty acres of valuable land in Tennespee to it. At his Institutions about twenty devoted ministers received a considerable part of their education and a still greater number of young men who engaged in a number of other employments were in a greatdegree educated by Dr. Hall. The D.D. was conferred on him by bothPrinceton and the University of North Carolina. It was in Dr. Hall's own chosen sphere of preacher and pastor he excelled. He was always full of tenderness and sympathy wherever he went. When his course was completed at Princeton, he returned to North Carolina. He was soon after licensed by the Presbytery of Orange and was installed as pastor of the United Congregations of Fourth Creek, Concord, and Bethany, April 8, 1778, and served these churches for a number of years but wishing to devote more time to mission work he resigned as pastor of Fourth Creek and Concord but preached on at Bethany for a period of twenty six years until he was forced by infirmities of to give it up. Doctor Hall attended the General Assembly sixteen times, which was held in Philadelphia. He attended this as a commissioner and was one time chosen moderator. No minister, it is believed, has ever been present so many years in the General Assembly. Dr. Hall, also went on fourteen missions under the direction of the General Assembly and the Synod of the Carolinas. Of these missions one was to the Mississippi territory and one was to Kentucky. So multiplied were the labors, so paternal were the affections of Dr. Hall that he had often been called, "The Apostle of North Carolina." At the formation of the American Bible Society of New Jersey he made himself a life member by the payment of thirty dollars. At his death he gave to the Concord Bible Society one hundred dollars and to the Mississippi two hundred. But in 1819 his efforts in the cause of his Divine Master ceased. In that year he returned from attending the meeting of the American Bible Society and the General Assembly for the last time, and also preached his last sermon. The remainder of his life was a period of great depression. This he spent with his nephew Davidson Hall and on July 25, 1826 he passed from his earthly toils. He died in an upstairs room on what is called the Howard place. The shelves where he kept his books are in the room in which he died. He was buried in the cemetery at Bethany Church on July 26, 1926. In this life it will never be known what the influence of such a life would mean to the country. There have been many men influenced through his preaching, teaching, and his pastoral visits. He has meant more to this state and other states than any one can tell.