Claiborn Hall

HALL - DUNCAN - JACKSON - BABBITT

Posted By: Mary E Boyer (email)
Date: 11/30/2006 at 00:10:55

BIOGRAPHY OF CLAIBORN HALL
Pioneers of Marion County - Page 212 - 214
Red Rock Township - Marion County - Iowa

Among the very earliest permanent settlers in this township was Claiborn Hall, still remembered as a somewhat prominent personage in political and religious circles, being an active and efficient member of the democratic party, the editor and proprietor of the first paper issued in the county in support of that party, and a minister of the Gospel in the Christian denomination.

Mr. Hall was born in Virginia in 1819; moved with his parents to Boone county, Mo., in ‘29; and in the autumn of the same year moved to Menard county, Ill., where his parents still reside. In the spring of ‘43 he came to Iowa and settled four miles north of the present site of Red Rock village. Having secured his claim, Mr. Hall cleared about thirteen acres, and got it planted about the 31st of May. After harvesting this crop he sowed the ground in wheat in the fall, having brought the seed from Illinois, and harvested from it a remarkably heavy yield in the summer following. A load of this wheat he got floured a Keosauqua, distant about a hundred miles.

In the spring of ‘45 he returned to Illinois and secured the co-partnership of Miss Susan T. Duncan, a former acquaintance, with whom he immediately repaired to his western home, and converted his “bachelor’s hall” into a country residence; and, it may be equally important to state that during his residence here he organized and superintended the first Sabbath school in the northern part of the county.

In ‘46 he was elected county surveyor, held the office one year and then succeeded to that of probate judge, which he held two years. In ‘49 he was elected sheriff, moved to Knoxville and held that office two years. In November, ‘50, his wife died, whereupon he put his official business into the hands of his deputy, Isaac H. Walters, and went to Illinois, where he spent the winter at the residence of his father. In the spring he returned and resumed the duties of his office; and at the expiration of the term was elected to the triple office of recorder, collector and treasurer; held it two years, and then voluntarily retired from the field as an office seeker.

Some time during the term of his last named office he formed a co-partnership with L. D. Jackson, (now deceased), in the mercantile business, and purchased an old stock of goods from L. W. Babbitt, to begin with. This business he continued only two years, when he sold out, purchased a farm near Knoxville, to which he retired with his second wife, whom he had married shortly before.

But again, in ‘56, he brought himself into public notice by becoming the editor and proprietor of the first Democratic newspaper published in the county. Being a warm politician, and somewhat enthusiastic in the interests of his party, he purchased the press and type for a paper to be devoted to the support and dissemination of its principles in Marion county, and in June of the year above mentioned, the “Democratic Standard” made its appearance. But being entirely without experience in this line of business, he succeeded but poorly, and after a short time disposed of the concern to a company.

Soon after his retirement from the publishing business Mr. Hall was elected to the office of county superintendent of schools for two years, and with the close of this term he finally retired from the political arena as an office seeker, and has since divided his time and talents as a farmer and a minister of the gospel. In ‘64 he returned to Illinois for permanent residence, where, in December of that year, his second wife died.

Transcribed by Mary E. Boyer for Iowa Gen Project - Marion County (of no relation)