Sunday, June 5th, 1864

To day I rode my horse hawk up to Mrs. Brooks' & remained there for dinner. I learned from her of the death of Silas E. Keen who was wounded at the battle of Mansfield. Nellie [Mary Alexandrien Sharp nee Lemaire] and Burt [Roberta Downes Halyard nee Hall] came up to see the little woman [Margaret Hall Stewart nee Sharp] they did not remain long as they left Mother [Mahala Sharp Hall nee Roberts] sick and had to return to wait upon her. Burt rode hawk home because the pony she rode up became refractory & would not be governed by her. Weather cloudy and warm with occasional showers of rain. Ther: 81°.

Monday, June 8th, 1863

To day we left Livingston and drove 24 miles to Sumpter where we stopped for the night at Mr. Teagarden's hotel. this distance I drove suffering very severe pain and cramp in my bowels. we met 26 wagons in one train all loaded with cotton. they were from Louisiana and bound for Brownsville for army supplies. Expenses of the day 2$. weather clear & hot. Ther: 88°.

Joshua James Hall

Around 1835, Joshua James Hall (1790-1871) came to Houston County, Texas. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1790. In 1812 he volunteered for military service for the defense of America against the British. February 19, 1819, he and his first wife Elizabeth had a son, who was named James Madison Hall.

From Baltimore, Joshua went to Natchez, Mississippi. On the rolls there of the Andrew Jackson Masonic Lodge, in 1820, he is found as a member.

Sometime in 1823, he moved to Vicksburg. There he went into a General Store business, and he married his second wife. Vicksburg was his home about ten years.

His son James Madison Hall moved with his father to New Orleans in 1833. At this time, there was a Yellow Fever epidemic, and Joshua being a fine wood craftsman, opened a business in making coffins for the many dead of the fever.

With a nice sum of money from this business, he moved with James Madison to Conroe, Texas in 1834. In Conroe, he had a General Retail Store.

While there, he began to make land investments. One of these investments was the purchase of the "Ramon de Garza" grant which was located in the northwestern part of Houston County. This grant had 24,000 acres of land. The Elkhart Creek ran through this land, and the Trinity River to one side.

This is where Joshua had a large story and one half house built. There were two large fireplaces on each side of this house with a long 'dog trot' running down the middle of the house.

He built near the Trinity River, a General Store and a Post Office. While Joshua had been in Mississippi, he had also been in the steam boat business. So, he went into the steam boat business again on the Trinity River. A dock was built on some high bluffs over the river and it was there that river steamers began to go up and down the river carrying the cotton and goods of the citizens of Houston County to Galveston.

This became a thriving place, and became known as the Hall's Bluff. Hall's Bluff was very busy in those early days, until the coming of the railroad to Crockett.

James Madison Hall would help with the family business, and he traveled to Liberty, Texas many times by horse over muddy roads from Crockett to Liberty.

Joshua was the gentleman type settler. He wore store bought clothes from New York. He wore the tall beaver hat that was the style of a gentleman of that day. Each year he went to Maryland and to New York for a visit.

In 1850, he married his third [sic] wife, Mahala Roberts Sharp, a widow who came to Houston County before 1835. She was the daughter of Elisha Roberts, an early Spanish Alcalde, of San Augustine, Texas.

To this union were born two children, a daughter Roberta, born May 25, 1852, and a son, Horace was born September 22, 1854. Both of these children were born on the Elkhart Creek Plantation. Horace was called "Toby" by the slaves. He was very close to these people and he always included them as his friends.

Joshua and Mahala were very fond of dancing. They went into Crockett to dancing school. At their Plantation, they had balls for the benefit of the Confederacy. They were active Methodists in the early Methodist church of Crockett.

In 1861, he is shown as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Soule University, a Methodist School at Chappel Hill. He had been elected to this post by the East Texas Methodist Conference. Throughout his life he was an active Mason.

In 1871, he died at his home at Elkhart Creek, where he was buried in the family cemetery.


by
Esther M. Biggers nee Hall
great-granddaughter of Joshua & Mahala

 

The above information was sent to the Keeper of this family history blog in November of 1998 from Pat Stephenson of Madisonville, Texas. In response to my Internet query, Pat wrote . . . "The Halls from Houston County are not my line but I live in Madison County, a Houston County neighbor. I looked at the Houston County history book, published 1979, in the Madison County Library and there is a story in it on Joshua James Hall. . . ." 

 


Virginia Ann Hall was Joshua Hall's third wife. He divorced her soon after marrying her because she would not come to Texas with him in 1850.

He married his second wife in Baltimore, Maryland. I will have to get his records out again to tell you this wife's name. She died in Vicksburg. This marriage was performed by a Rev. Duncan. I have the record for this marriage.

Joshua's first wife was Elizabeth Ann Hall, the mother to James Madison Hall. Not much is known about her. Joshua married her it seems at a very young age.

James Madison came to New Orleans with his father around 1820. Joshua made a lot of money in New Orleans during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1832-1833, as he was a cabinet maker. He had his business in the French Quarters which means that he could speak French. The cabinet maker made coffins in the early days.

When he made his fortune at this time, and he made a trip to his home city Baltimore, and that is when he married his second wife. She came back to New Orleans with him, then went to Vicksburg, Miss., where Joshua had a store and a Ferry across the Mississippi River.

The "Hall's Ferry" road is still there today. I have the land deed of just where his business was. It was on the River. It seems that Joshua used the same business principal he had in Vicksburg when he set up Hall's Bluff.

James Madison came to Texas first with his cousin John L. Hall. They fought the Mexicans, General Cos at San Antonia in the year 1835 of which the Mexicans were sent back to Mexico. For this battle the men received some Texas Land. James Madison and John L. Hall got theirs in Houston, County (Journal records this).

Joshua still lived in New Orleans then to Vicksburg. Joshua was a citizen of two areas -- Miss. and new Texas. He traveled back and forth between Vicksburg and Houston County.

He paid for the 24,000 acres of a Mexican Land Grant (I have that record) for $39,000 which was a very large amount of money for that day in 1839. His son James, and nephew John were his managers. He came to Texas in the very early 1850's for keeps.

He married Elisha Roberts' daughter, Mahala, a widow of Sam Sharp [John M. Sharp]. Mahala had lived in the northern west part of Houston county with Sam [John] when they came there as a young bride and groom from San Augustine.

The above info was originally shared by Esther Biggers on the 11th of January in 2001. 

Review of Hall's Journal - Part One

The Houston County Courier
Crockett, Texas
Thursday, February 2, 1967

Hall's Journal of 60's
Reviewed For Readers
By H. B. Milburn

In our Houston County Library there is a three hundred and twenty-five page Journal that's going to prove of interest to many descendants of pioneer families living in Houston County. This Journal has just recently been presented TO THE LIBRARY by Mrs. Mahala HALL BROWNLOW of Shreveport, La., and her nephew Robert L. HALL of Anahuac, Texas.

The Journal is of the Civil War period, and was kept by JAMES MADISON HALL when he lived at Hall's Bluff during the years 1860-1866.

Here, we feel that we should give a biographical sketch of James Madison HALL, who kept the Journal -- and to this we turned to our ever highly prized "History of Houston County" written many many years ago by Judge A. A. ALDRICH; and from this, in part, we quote.

"James Madison HALL was the son of Joshua A [James] HALL. He was born February 22nd, probably in Maryland. He came with his father to Houston County as early as July 1st, 1839. He married Cornelia A. BRACKEN, as early as 1851.

"James Madison [HALL] was elected district clerk in Houston County in 1847, and held the office until 1857.

"About 1858 he and his first wife were divorced and he later married his stepsister, a daughter of his stepmother, Mahala HALL, with whom he lived until his death in 1866."

The Journal "covers the entire period of the Civil War from 1861 to 1866. In this he has preserved some valued history of that period."

"James Madison HALL was the son of Joshua H [James] HALL. The records show that JOSHUA J. HALL was here as early as July 1st, 1839; and that he was owner of more than twenty-three thousand acres of land on which he located his home, and on which he lived up to the time of his death. He later married the widow Mahala L. SHARP, the daughter of Elisha ROBERTS, a pioneer citizen of San Augustine County. Soon after reaching Houston County he established a warehouse and business at a point on the bank of the Trinity River, near his home, which, ever since, has been known as Hall's Bluff.

"Hall's Bluff," as Judge A. A. ALDRICH wrote "was quite a business place where cotton was shipped to market on steamboats that plied the river to and from Galveston. The business of hauling cotton to that point, and goods from that point, to Crockett merchants, was a regular trade before the coming of the railroad."

To be continued . . .

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)