Saturday, October 20th, 1860.

To day Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Leaverton, Father and the 2 children came to see the little woman and the new responsibility. all remained to dinner, after which they all went home & Rachael came to to nurse the little woman. Still at work on the garden screen. weather clear & warm in the day but cold at night with a hard frost.

Sunday, July 1st, 1860

To day I settled with Bill upon said settlement I fell in his debt $2.50. In the evening Mother, Father & the children took supper with us. weather changable & warm & a very light shower or sprinkle of rain.

Monday, June 25th, 1860

To day I went to the lower place & to Mothers. The little woman came home and brought Burt & Toby with Father who all returned after dinner. The hands still at work in the cotton. weather changable & warm with some prospects for a rain.

Tuesday, June 19th, 1860

To day Mr. Harwell went to Crockett & returned in the evening. Mother [Mahala* Sharp Hall nee Roberts] came up & remained all day. Father [Joshua James Hall] & Mr. Hepperla also took dinner. Mother carried Toby [Horace Oscar Hall] home in the evening. weather changable & warm.

Monday, June 18th, 1860

To day I went to the lower place & brought Toby up. Hands in the cotton. weather clear & very warm.

Monday, June 11th, 1860

To day I went to the lower place & brought Toby home. The hands at work in the cotton. Mrs. Peacock loaned me 1 qr. of beef weighing 65 lbs. weather changable.

Sunday, June 10th, 1860

To day I went fishing with Frank Stewart & John Harwell & had good success. Father & the children took dinner with us. James Wootters visited us in the evening. Bill Hicks hauled 3 loads of rails. Weather changable & warm.

On the 7th of June, 1860, was solemnized the marriage of Major Wootters to Mrs. Emily Mildred Long, widow of Col. L. Long, of Crockett. . . .

Horace Oscar (Toby) Hall (1854-1934)

The Crockett Courier
Volume XIV. Number 13.
Crockett, Texas
April 12, 1934

Mr. Horace O. Hall, citizen of Crockett for nearly 80 years, died at his home at 9:10 Monday night. Mr. Hall was born Sept. 22, 1854 and he would soon be eighty years old. He was a native of Houston Co. His father was the lamented Captain J.J. Hall, one of Houston County's pioneer citizens and planters. The plantation of the elder Hall was at Hall's Bluff on the Trinity River which location bears the Hall's name until this day. The wife of Horace O. Hall died a number of years ago [i.e., Florine Annie Kirkpatrick (1861-1900)].

Mr. Horace Hall was a good citizen and neighbor. Unobtrusive in his disposition, he retired early to the privacy of farm life and by his own seeking was never in the limelight. In the quiet of his country home just outside the city limits he reared and educated his children, who are ::

• James F. Hall of Groveton (1883-1965)
• Horace O. Hall, Jr. of Houston (1896-1983)
• Mrs. Henrietta Walters of Port Neches (1887-1953)
• Mrs. Ruth Hamilton of Dallas (1892-1975)
• Mrs. Mahala Brownlow of Shreveport (1894-1991)
• Miss Susie Hall of Houston (1899-1955)

Most of these, including a daughter-in-law, Mrs. Felix Hall [i.e., Susie Beatrice Loring (1885-1961)] and her two children [i.e., Robert Loring Hall (1914-1981) and Mary Sue Deen nee Hall (1916-2001)] of Tyler, were here for the funeral. Felix Hall (1884-1926) died several years ago.
Funeral services were held in the Glenwood cemetery Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 o'clock. Rev. B.L. Pool, the Methodist pastor conducting the services. Mr. Hall was a member of the Methodist Church. Interment in charge was T.J. Waller funeral director followed by a religious service.

Active pallbearers were ::

• C.W. Moore
• H. Long
• J.L. Arledge
• R.J. Spence
• T.R. DewPree
• D.D. Dishough
• J.C. Goolsby
• N.W. Boo...

Honorary pallbearers were ::

• J.R. Foster
• J.W. Shivers
• Dr. T.S. Wootters
• J.E. Monk
• Chas. Hassell
• J.W. Arledge
• Senator Nat Patton
• A.W. Phillips
• J.L. Monk

The Courier wishes to join in extending condolences to the bereaved.

Mahala Lee Sharp Hall nee Roberts

175 years ago today . . . on the 3rd day of November . . . in the year 1816 . . . a baby girl is born in Washington Parish, Louisana . . . she is given the name Mahala Lee Roberts . . .


 

. . . Mahala Lee Sharp Hall nee Roberts . . . aka (in this Journal) Mrs. Hall . . . or Mrs. J.J. Hall . . . or Mother . . . is a 3rd great-grandma of the Keeper of this Blog (aka Vickie Everhart) . . . and is the step-mother . . . as well as the mother-in-law . . . of the Keeper of this Journal (aka James Madison Hall) . . .



 

Our Mahala is 43 years of age when she is first mentioned in the Journal . . . on Monday, January 16th, 1860 . . . when J.M. Hall writes that . . . Mrs. J.J. Hall also left on a visit to Mrs. Matthews with a view of purchasing a negro man for me . . .





Mahala Lee Roberts
North American Indian name meaning /"Woman"/
Mahaley /HALL/
Michala /Roberts/

• Born on 3 November 1816 - Washington Parish, Louisiana
  
• Died on 27 June 1885 - Elkhart Creek, Houston County, Texas
  
• Age at death: 68 years old
  
• Buried in June 1885 - Hall Cemetery, Houston County, Texas
  

Parents

* Elisha Roberts ca 1774-1844 * Martha Gill ca 1781-1845

Marriages and children

* Married on 22 March 1838, San Augustine County, Texas, to John M. Sharp ca 1800/1815-/ca 1846, with
o Samuel Houston ca 1839-ca 1885; findagrave o Margaret Annot ca 1840-ca 1878; findagrave
* Married on 12 February 1851, San Augustine County, Texas, to Joshua James Hall, Colonel ca 1790-ca 1871, with
o Roberta A. 1852-1915 o Horace Oscar 1854-1934

Notes from Ida Mae:- My Grandmother [i.e., Mahala] came from San Augustine to Houston County, and I believe that my father [i.e., Samuel Houston Sharp, Sr.] and aunt [i.e., Margaret Hall Stewart nee Sharp] were born there before she came to this County [i.e., Houston Co., TX]. I do not know anything about her family, except that she had a sister named Margaret, who married a McDonald and lived in Houston County, Texas. . . .

• A Tribute to Our Mahala
  
• Our Mahala's Extensive Timeline
  
• All mentions of Mahala in this Journal as of this date (updates will be ongoing through at least September of 2016)

DIARY OF MAYOR TELLS WAR STORY

The Liberty Vindicator
Liberty, Texas
April 22, 1965


The diary kept by James Madison HALL, who served Liberty as mayor from 1861 to 1866, has not only helped to piece together the history of the Liberty area since the city's incorporation in 1838, but also records some interesting sidelights of the changing times, it was revealed in a check of material received by Mrs. Ben PICKETT, chairman of the Liberty Historical Committee.


R.L. HALL of Anahuac, licensed state land surveyor and registered public surveyor, who has the diary kept by his great uncle, conveyed highlights from the chronicle to Mrs. PICKETT, along with a photostat copy of a picture of "the best likeness I have of James Madison HALL" taken from Judge A.A. ALDRICH's History of Houston County.


The quality of the reproduction was not of the type that can be printed in a newspaper, however.


Mayor HALL's cause of death is not revealed in the information at hand, but the gentleman apparently remained active in his many pursuits -- one of them the surveying business such as is being carried on by his great nephew -- up until his last days, the final entry by him in his diary being made September 10, 1866, followed by a notation of his death September 12, 1866, just two days later.


R.L. HALL reports the interesting fact that the Bible record is apparently at error by one year in placing Mayor HALL's date of death as September 12, 1867. An old copy of the Liberty Gazette substantiates the diary notation of his death having occurred in 1866.


James Madison HALL was an older half-brother of my grandfather, Horace O. HALL," Mr. HALL explained in a letter to Mrs. PICKETT accompanying the other information. "They were both sons of Col. Joshua James HALL who came to Texas in about the year 1835 and settled on the Ramon de la Garza Five Leagues on Elkhart Creek in Houston County, Texas."

Hall says his great uncle assisted in the tax office in Liberty from time to time, though he ran a mill near Elkhart, and was at one time provost marshal in charge of conscription for the Confederate forces in Liberty.


Married on July 14, 1859, six months before he began keeping his diary which started on January 16, 1860, Mayor HALL recorded the birth of a daughter, Florence "Fawn" HALL on October 19, 1860, and a son, James Wrigley HALL, on October 8, 1862. The son was apparently a namesake of another former Liberty mayor, James WRIGLEY, who is recorded as serving 1850-51-56-82 [SIC].

Earlier in 1862, on March 1, J.M. HALL had been nominated colonel of the Fifth Regiment, Second Brigade. Entries of November 12 through 17 of that same year clearly reflect the signs of the times, dealing with building of fortifications at the mouth of the Trinity River.

(Mayor HALL's grand nephew, R.L., who reported this information, now lives about three blocks south of these old fortifications in Anahuac.)


The river work underway, HALL proceeded to act as "major domo" on November 24 in a "grand tableaux given in Liberty, Texas, for the relief of soldiers," the diary records.


Since U.S. citizens right now are still moaning from having just passed another "Ides of April" and the dread of income tax statements, a tax note of interest from HALL's diary of November 27, 1863, might be of noted: "Paid $1213 war tax." Not only that, HALL recorded, but "whiskey was $80 per gallon."


HALL's diary reports December 31, 1863, as the coldest day of his 28 years in Texas, with the mill pond frozen over; purchase of one ounce of quinine on July 21, 1864, for $300; dancing one cotillion at a ball given by a Captain Stubblefield at Hall's Bluff on January 20, 1865, for the price of $10 -- and a laconic comment on March 14, 1865, of his attempted asassination by six men, one of whom he named.


Trinity River navigation got in the story, too, when HALL made a trip upriver in April from Smithfield on John F. CARR's flat-boat and tied up at the railroad bridge. And in May he records the Steamer Ruthven's being tied up at Chambers Wharf in Anahuac.


The end of the Civil War in this chronicle had nothing to do with LEE's surrender to GRANT, but is recorded thus:


"May 24, 1865, Gen'l E. K. SMITH surrendered to General CANBY of the Trans-Mississippi Department -- War is over."


On July 3 that year, HALL purchased 100 pounds of bacon at 10 cents a pound, and on August 19, he was elected Mayor of the City of Liberty.


Building of a school house in Liberty was begun in January of the following year, which was the year of his death, and in March, the mayor wrote that he had purchased two pair of fine gold spectacles -- one for himself and one for his wife.


June 26, Liberty City Council passed several sanitary ordinances because of the prevalence of smallpox in the city, a fact widely substantiated by microfilm records of newspapers and city council actions of that time. Whether the then-dread disease was the cause of the mayor's death is not recorded, but it was in September of that year he passed away.

The R.L. HALL mentioned here is Robert Loring HALL (17 May 1914 - 11 August 1981).