San Francisco County
Biographies
WILLIAM HAMMOND HALL
HALL, WILLIAM HAMMOND, Consulting and Constructing Engineer,
San Francisco, California was born
in Hagerstown, Maryland, February
12, 1846, the son of John Buchanan Hall and Anna Maria (Hammond)
Hall. In 1870, at San
Francisco, he married Emma Kate Fitzhugh, of the
distinguished Southern family of that name.
They have three daughters, Anna Hammond, Margaret Fitzhugh and Katharine
Buchanan Hall.
Arriving
in California at the age of
seven, Mr. Hall’s school-room education was confined to a private academy, from
1858 to 1865, under the tutelage of an Episcopal clergyman. It was intended that he should enter the West
Point Military Academy,
and his schooling was directed to that end, but the outbreak of the Civil War
caused his parents to abandon these plans.
Shortly after the close of the war he became a computer and draughtsman
in the office of Col. R. S. Williamson of the U. S. Engineer Corps.
His
first work under Col. Williamson in the field was as an assistant in the barometrical
measuring of the snow-clad peaks in Oregon. He next became a rod-man and subsequently a
surveyor on topographic service for fortification purposes, under the U. S.
Board of Engineers for the Pacific Coast. He was also a draughtsman in the same employ. Therein he participated as field engineer,
computer and draughtsman in the surveys of localities for the purpose of
fortification, lighthouses, harbors of refuge and navigation. These ranged from San Diego
Harbor to and including Neah Bay,
the southernmost and northernmost harbors then on the Pacific
Coast (1866-1870). In this period he was also on the surveys of
the rapids of the upper Columbia and Willamette rivers, Oregon, for the improvement
of navigation, and these activities were supplemented
by his topographic contouring of the peninsula of San Francisco, especially the
Presidio Reservation and Point Lobos, again for fortifications, as well as by
his hydrographic work for the harbors of San Diego and San Francisco.
In
August, 1870, Mr. Hall was awarded the contract, by the first Board of Park
Commissioners of San Francisco, for the topographic survey of the Golden Gate
Park Reservation.
In
August, 1871, after his plans had been accepted by the Commission, he was
appointed Engineer and Superintendent of Parks, and in this capacity, until
1876, reclaimed the sand wastes and planned and improved Golden
Gate Park. The next two years, in the joint employ of
the Bank of California and the then Nevada Bank, he was in charge, as engineer,
of extensive land and water properties in the San Joaquin Valley, including the
canals which have since made Fresno famous.
Under
an act of Legislature providing for investigation of problems of irrigation,
river improvement, reclamation and disposal of mining debris, Governor William
Irwin, in May, 1878, appointed Mr. Hall first State Engineer of
California. He was four times
reappointed to this office and served until his resignation in February, 1889. It is only just to say that the extensive
irrigation, water storage and river and reclamation surveys and examinations
made by the State Engineering Department under his supervision have constituted
the basis of work and reports of a number of State and other authorities since
that time, who have received credit therefore.
The State Engineer’s reports of that period, which were the first
systematic studies of the subject in this country, have also served as guides
for many reports in later years.
In
March, 1889, Mr. Hall was appointed Supervising Engineer of the United States
Irrigation Investigation (the predecessor of the United States Reclamation
Service) for all the region west of the Rocky
Mountains, and served until the end of June, 1890. Therein he was one of the three engineers who
organized and managed the first United States Government irrigation
investigation. Here, too, the methods
and reports of those years have shaped similar work ever since. From July, 1890, to June, 1896, while in
private practice as a civil engineer, he was in charge of important irrigation
and water supply work in the southern and central parts of California
and in the State of Washington.
The
next step in Mr. Hall’s progression was to Europe and South
Africa, in 1896. Until 1898 he was in this latter country, and
in London, acting as Consulting
Engineer on Irrigation and Water Works.
During this period he was in charge of the construction of a large plant
for supplying water to the principal mines about Johannesburg,
in the Transvaal, for the Cecil Rhodes and Werner Beit Syndicate.
Under a contract with the Commissioner of Public Works of the Cape
Colonial Government he made an extended report on irrigation and drafted a new
water and irrigation law. Zest was given
to his stay in this country by the unique experience of having to serve
professionally and intimately two warring factions at daggers’ points with each
other—in other words, to make a report on irrigation in Rhodesia,
to the Rt. Hon. Cecil Rhodes, and on the other hand, an examination for water
storage for irrigation for President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic.
The
year 1899 finds Mr. Hall in the Russian Empire.
Here he made examinations and reports on irrigation and great canal
projects in the Russian Transcaucasus and in Central
Asia to the Minister of Agriculture, M. Yermoloff,
and on similar works in the Merve Oasis to the
minister in charge of the Imperial Estates, Prince Viasemski.
He
returned to California in 1900,
where until the present time he has been engaged chiefly in the management of
properties for investment and development.
In this connection he acquired control of properties in the Lake
Eleanor and Cherry Creek water sheds, which have
since been selected by the city of San Francisco
for a water supply.
Mr.
Hall has confined his membership to the American Society of Civil Engineers, in
which he is the holder of the Norman Medal, and to the Pacific-Union Club, from
which he resigned when he went abroad in 1896.
Transcribed by Betty Vickroy.
Source: Press Reference
Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page
421, International News
Service, New
York,
Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Betty Vickroy.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library