Charles Edwin Hall

CHARLES EDWIN HALL came to Russell County forty years ago. It is interesting to note that he spent his early life in Wisconsin, a section of country which furnished the first colony to Russell County. Mr. Hall was not an immediate member of that colony, but was doubtless influenced to come here by the presence of so many Wisconsin people.

He was born in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, February 26, 1856. This branch of the Hall family came to America from England about 1642, settling around Charlestown, Massachusetts. For several generations the family lived at Middle Granville, New York, where Mr. Hall's grandfather spent his active life as a physician. Mr. Hall's father was Dr. Storrs Hall, who was born in 1794 at Middle Granville, New York. He grew up there, attended college at Rutland, Vermont, receiving his A. B. degree, and took his medical course in Yale College. For a time he taught school at Macon, Georgia, prior to the Civil war, later taught in an academy at Norwich and Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was member of a colony formed in the East to make settlement in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. He practiced medicine at Rosendale, Wisconsin, and continued his profession until very old. Altogether he practiced more than half a century and finally lived retired at Ripon, Wisconsin, where he died in 1885. He was a republican and a very active member of the Congregational Church. He also belonged to the Masonic Order. Dr. Storrs Hall married Elizabeth M. Scribner. She was born at Bridgeport, Connecticut, and died at Ripon, Wisconsin, at the age of ninety-four. Her children were: Sydney S., a physician and surgeon living in Ripon, Wisconsin; William S., a retired dairyman and mine operator at Denver, Colorado; Charles Edwin; Ira, an implement salesman living at Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Charles Edwin Hall received his early education in the public schools of Rosendale, Wisconsin. He attended Rutland College, and part of his early experience was as clerk in a store.

At the age of twenty-one, in 1877, he came to Kansas and established his home in Russell. After some varied experiences he bought in 1885 a local drug store and continued that business about five years. In 1889 he received his first public honor, and for upwards of thirty years has been identified with much of the public life of the town and county. He was first elected register of deeds and held that office for four consecutive terms, eight years. In 1899 President McKinley appointed him postmaster of Russell and he filled that office four years. Since leaving the postoffice Mr. Hall has been engaged in the real estate, insurance and abstract of title business and is the leading man in that line. His offices are in the Russell State Bank Building on Eighth Street, and he is vice president and a director of that bank. He is also secretary and a director of the Russell Telephone Company.

In 1904 Mr. Hall was elected representative for Russell County, serving in the session of 1905, where he was a member of the railroad committee, committee on assessments and taxation and the committee on highways. He also served two terms as mayor of Russell. Mr. Hall is a republican and is affiliated with Russell Lodge No. 177, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is past master, having held that office five years; with Russell Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, St. Aldaman Commandery of the Knights Templar at Ellsworth, and Isis Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Salina. He lives in one of the good homes of Russell, a residence which be built in 1885 at the corner of Fifth and Fossil streets. The residence stands in the midst of large grounds containing a quarter of a block. In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Mr. Hall married Miss Emma Ackerman, daughter of Henry I. and Adaline Ackerman, both now deceased. Her father was at one time a merchant at Fond du Lac. Mr. and Mrs. Hall had two children. Henry Storrs, the son, had completed his literary education in Washburn College at Topeka and had gone to Ripon, Wisconsin, to enter Ripon College, was taken sick there and died at the age of twenty-two. The daughter, Winifred R., is a graduate of the Russell High School, finished her education at Greely, Colorado, and was at the head of the Domestic Science Department of the public schools of Cheyenne, Wyoming. She is now the wife of Earl D. Milliard, of Manhattan, Kansas. Mr. Milliard, who is an expert mechanic, is a graduate of the Mechanical Department of the Kansas Agricultural College and has a prosperous machine shop business at Manhattan.

Pages 2174-2175.