Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
consequence he was removed from office in March, 1858.
Returning to Dover, he continued the study of law--which he had
commenced in New York--in the office of the eminent lawyer, Daniel M.
Christie, and on that gentleman's motion was admitted to the bar at the
May term, 1860. He afterwards well repaid Mr. Christie's kindness by a
eulogy, upon his decease, delivered before the court, and subsequently
printed. It was regarded as an eloquent and appreciative tribute to Mr.
Christie's remarkable qualities of manhood, and extraordinary powers as
a lawyer.
Mr. Hall, upon his admission to the bar, opened an office in Dover, and
commenced practice. In the spring of 1859, just before the state
election, in view of the great crisis coming upon the country, at an
immense meeting in Dover, he (as did also Judge Charles Doe) withdrew
from the Democratic party and cast in his allegiance with the
Republicans. With them, where his conscience and political principles
alike placed him, has his lot been cast ever since; and it is not
improbable that that one addition, in later and critical years, turned
the scale in New Hampshire's political destinies.
It was an episode in his life that in 1859 he was appointed, by the
governor and council, school commissioner for Strafford county, and
re-appointed in 1860. His early training in the country district school,
his work as master in the winters, and his hard-earned higher education
qualified him eminently for the practical duties of this office.
In the autumn of 1861, Mr. Hall was appointed secretary of the United
States senate committee to investigate the surrender of the Norfolk
navy-yard. This committee consisted of John P. Hale, Andrew Johnson, and
James W. Grimes. Soon after, he was appointed clerk of the senate
committee on Naval Affairs, at Washington, of which Mr. Hale was
chairman. He served in this capacity until March, 1862; but he wished
for more immediate participation in the great struggle then in progress.
The conflict, which had its symptoms in the Lecompton strife, had become
war, and the young man who had then sacrificed office for principle was
ready for a still greater sacrifice. In March, 1862, he was commissioned
aid-de-camp and captain in the regular army of the United States. He was
assigned to duty with Gen. John C. Fremont; but before he had time to
join that officer, Gen. Fremont had retired from command, and Capt. Hall
was transferred to the staff of Gen. A. W. Whipple, then in command at
Arlington Heights, of the troops and works in front of Washington, on
the south side of the Potomac. In September, 1862, a few days after the
battle of Antietam, Gen. Whipple joined the army of the Potomac, and
eventually marched with it to the front of Fredericksburg. On the 13th
of December, 1862, he was in the battle of Fredericksburg, crossing the
river with the third corps, and taking part in the sanguinary assault
upon the works which covered Marye's Heights.
At the battle of Chancellorsville he was in the column sent out to cut
Jackson's line as he moved in front of the army, and in the gallant
action of the third division of the third corps, under Gen. Whipple, of
whose staff he was a member, and was with that lamented officer when he
fell mortally wounded. Capt. Hall was then assigned to the staff of Gen.
Oliver O. Howard, commander of the eleventh corps, and with him went to
Gettysburg. His position in that action was important. When Gen.
Reynolds, commanding the first corps, had advanced through the town and
encountered the enemy, Gen. Howard, then moving up and about five miles
to the rear, hearing the heavy firing, ordered Capt. Hall to ride
forward as rapidly as possible, find Gen. Reynolds, ascertain the
condition of affairs, and obtain his orders. Capt. Hall's fleet horse
soon covered the distance, and he found Gen. Reynolds himself in an
advanced and exposed position from the enemy's fire. He did his errand;
Gen. Reynolds said he had met the enemy in force, and sent the order to
Gen. Howard to bring up his corps with all possible dispatch. Scarcely
had Capt. Hall got back through the town, when he was overtaken by the
intelligence that Gen. Reynolds was mortally wounded, and near the
cemetery he met Gen. Howard impatiently coming up in advance of his
corps. Passing Cemetery Ridge, Gen. Howard said, "That is the place to
fight this battle," and directed Capt. Hall to take a battery from the
leading division, and place it in position on the crest of the hill.
This was done, and that battery, the first planted on Cemetery Hill,
remained on that spot through the three days of the conflict. When Gen.
Howard took his own place there, Capt. Hall was of course with him, and
on the second day of the engagement was slightly wounded by a shell.
These details are given, simply to place on record, in this permanent
form, his testimony to the justice of the claim made by the friends of
Gen. Howard, that he was fully entitled to the thanks voted him by
congress for selecting Cemetery Hill and holding it as the battleground
of the great and glorious battle of Gettysburg.
In the latter part of 1863 his health suffered, and he was forced to
leave the service in December, 1863. But in June, 1864, he was appointed
provost-marshal of the first New Hampshire district, being stationed at
Portsmouth, and here he remained until the close of the war. The affairs
of the office were in some confusion, but his methodical habits soon
reduced it to order. During his term of service, he enlisted or drafted,
and forwarded, over four thousand men to the army. This service ceased
in October, 1865. "He was one of the men," said a substitute broker to
the writer of this sketch, "that no man dared approach with a crooked
proposition, no matter how much was in it."
Mr. Hall resumed the practice of law in Dover, but in 1866 was appointed
clerk of the supreme court for Strafford county, and in 1868, judge of
the police court of the city of Dover. The duties of these offices were
performed with his usual sense of justice, but in 1874, the Democratic
party, being in power, "addressed" him out of both offices. In the mean
time he had been judge-advocate, with the rank of major, in the military
of New Hampshire, under Gov. Smyth, and held a position on the staff of
Gov. Harriman, which gave him his usual title of Colonel.
Col. Hall had long taken a deep interest in political affairs. To him
they represented principles. In 1873 he was president of the Republican
state convention at Concord. He had been for some years a member of the
Republican state committee, when, in December, 1873, his abilities as a
leader and executive were recognized in his selection as chairman of
that committee. He so remained until 1877, and conducted the campaigns,
state and national, of 1874, 1875, and 1876. These were critical years
for the Republican party. The nearly even balance of parties in New
Hampshire, the vigor and intensity with which the battles are always
fought, and the skill necessary in every department, demand abilities
and energies of the highest order. The years mentioned surpassed
ordinary years in political danger to the Republicans. It is sufficient
to say that Col. Hall conducted the last three campaigns to a triumphant
issue. So decisive were the successive victories that the tide was
turned, and from that time the state has not swerved from Republican
allegiance.
In 1876, Col. Hall was chairman of the New Hampshire delegation to the
Republican national convention at Cincinnati, being chosen at large,
unpledged, and with scarce a dissenting vote. Seven delegates voted from
first to last for James G. Blaine; but Col. Hall, with ex-Gov. Straw and
Hon. Charles H. Burns, voted six times for Mr. Bristow, and on the
decisive ballot for Rutherford B. Hayes.
In 1876 and 1877, Mr. Hall was, by appointment of Gov. Cheney, reporter
of the decisions of the supreme court of New Hampshire, and in that
honorable position published vols. 56 and 57, New Hampshire Reports.
In 1877 he succeeded Gov. Harriman as naval officer at the port of
Boston. This office is co-ordinate with that of collector, upon which it
is a check. Mr. Hall's business habits, his keen insight, his perfect
accuracy, and the ruling principle of his life to do everything well and
thoroughly, there came into operation. He quietly mastered the details
as well as the general work of the department. Regularly at his post,
his office became a model in its management, and was commended in the
highest terms by the proper officers. When, therefore, his term expired,
he was re-appointed for another four years, by President Arthur, with no
serious opposition.
Mr. Hall married, January 25, 1877, Sophia, daughter of Jonathan T. and
Sarah (Hanson) Dodge, of Rochester, and has one son, Arthur Wellesley
Hall, born August 30, 1878. The beautiful house erected and occupied by
him in Dover, and adorned with cultivated taste, has not its least charm
in the steadily increasing library of carefully selected literature, to
whose study he devotes the hours not required by official duties.
He attends the First church of Dover, the Congregational church, where
his emigrant ancestor held office two centuries and a quarter ago. He is
a radical teetotaler, and deeply interested in the cause of temperance.
It is his personal request to have his great love for the horse, and,
indeed, for all animals, spoken of in this sketch.
Mr. Hall's gentle, courteous, and unassuming manners do not meet the
common idea of the bold and sagacious politician. His modest
conversation will suggest scholarly instincts, but requires time to show
the breadth of his culture. Public addresses have, as occasions
demanded, exhibited the thoughtful political student, a patriotic love
of country, and the ripeness of the accomplished scholar. Fidelity to
every engagement, good faith to every principle espoused, firmness in
determination, and usefulness in every work undertaken, have insured him
success. But in a life still so young, it is fair to assume that
recognitions of public respect will be greater than any trusts yet
given, or reputation achieved, in his profession, the field of long past
battles, or the offices of public honor.
HON. DAVID H. GOODELL.
Olive Atwood Wright was one of a large family of children. Her parents,
who lived in Sullivan, were very poor and found it difficult to provide
for the many who were dependent upon them, and when Olive was fifteen
years of age she left home and started for Boston in search of an
opportunity to earn her own living. On arriving in that city she had
just fifty cents, and finding no employment there she proceeded to
Waltham, where the first cotton-factory in the country had just
commenced operations. Here she found some old acquaintances; but they
refused to recognize her on account of her poverty. She, however,
obtained the privilege of working in the factory, and at the end of a
year visited her parents with eighty times as much money in her pocket
as she had when the stage left her in Boston. Eight years later she had
saved from her earnings five hundred dollars, and having married a young
farmer, Jesse R. Goodell, went to live with him upon the homestead which
had belonged to his ancestors, in Hillsborough. This couple were the
parents of DAVID H. GOODELL, who was an only child, and was born May 6,
1834. The family remained upon the Hillsborough farm until 1841, when it
was sold and they removed to another in the adjoining town of Antrim.
The parents, who had had but very limited school privileges, felt keenly
the importance of an education, and were desirous of having their son
obtain one. They accordingly, when he had mastered the studies of the