San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOSEPH E. HALL
A successful businessman known
throughout San Joaquin County for his progressive methods is Joseph E. Hall,
the managing director of Hall Brothers Company, the well-known grocers, whose
place of business is at 28 North El Dorado Street. He was born on a farm in Monroe County,
Michigan, February 6, 1852, the son of Thomas E. and Azuba
(Eckley) Hall, both natives of Rutland, Vermont, and
both now deceased. The Hall family
emigrated to the woods of Michigan in 1818, and Grandfather David Hall cleared
away the trees from land for his seven sons, who later became Michigan
farmers. They lived seventeen miles from
a white family, and friendly Indians were their only neighbors.
When Joseph was fourteen years of
age his folks removed to Ringwood, McHenry County, Illinois, and in that place
he clerked in a grocery; and from there in 1871, when he was about nineteen, he
came west to California and settled in San Joaquin County. He arrived in Stockton with fifty dollars in
his pocket; and realizing that this small capital would not permit him to
remain idle long; he went to work on John Moore’s dairy farm, at forty dollars
a month in wages and his board. Mr.
Moore was a member of the grocery firm of Hammond, Moore & Yardley on East
Weber Avenue, opposite the court house, at Stockton, which became Hammond &
Yardley; and after young Hall had worked on the ranch for a month, Mr. Moore
gave him a position as clerk in his Stockton store. For twenty years he held that position and
during that time he never drew a dollar in advance, nor had a dollar deducted
from his pay for absence from the store; a record of which any man might justly
be proud. In course of time, on the
other hand, his wages were advanced, and during the last seven years he
received $100 per month without asking for an increase.
In 1890 Mr. Hall bought the grocery
of J. Petsinger at 28 North El Dorado Street, which
he conducted under the name of J. E. Hall, and later he took in his two sons as
partners, and then the firm was styled J. E. Hall & Sons. In 1910 he turned the business over to his
sons, and the firm is now Hall Bros., and they have a branch store at 533 East
Weber Avenue. In early days he erected a
home on Weber Avenue at the corner of Aurora Street, and there, where his three
sons were born, he lived for many years.
Mr. Hall is president of the J. C. Smith Company, which formerly owned
2,200 acres on the Lower Sacramento Road, the property of the late J. C. Smith,
his wife’s father; 800 acres of this property was sold to the syndicate which
opened up that fashionable subdivision Tuxedo Park, and the company gave forty
acres as a donation to the College of the Pacific, for the new site of the
college, still retaining almost 1,400 acres, which is leased to tenants for
farming fruit and vegetables.
In 1879 Mr. Hall was married to Miss
Minnie J. Smith, born in Stockton, the daughter of J. C. and Melissa (Boone)
Smith, the former a pioneer and large landowner and farmer, who crossed the
plains to California in 1853. Mrs. Smith
was the granddaughter of Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky; she died in
1907, especially mourned in the circles of the Methodist Church, South, and the
Order of Rebekahs. Three sons sprang
from this union, and two are still living.
Eckley B. became an Odd Fellow, and is now
deceased; Clarence E. is also popular in the lodges of the Odd Fellows; and
Lynwood E., who married Miss Vera Sackett, is not only an Odd Fellow, but he
belongs to Lodge No. 218 of the Elks.
Joseph E. Hall now owns a residence costing $10,000 on North Monroe
Street. He is a Republican; and he
served one term in the city council from the Third ward, and in 1888 one term
as police and fire commissioner. After
he turned the store over to his sons, he became active in the Chamber of
Commerce, and in 1915 he gathered the exhibits from all parts of the county for
the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, and also for the Sand Diego
Fair; and for thirteen months he was in charge of the county exhibit at the
Fair in San Diego. He also furnished the
county exhibit for the Fair in Denver, Colorado, and sent it there to be
exhibited. He gathered the exhibit,
placed it in shape at the State Fair in Sacramento for three years, and
supervised it. He belongs to Charity
Lodge of the Odd Fellows, which he joined in 1873, and he is one of only four
members of that lodge now living that were members when he joined. He has passed through all the chairs, and is
a member of all branches of the Odd Fellows, and has attended many meetings of
the grand lodge.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1600-1601. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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