Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/329

 THE

��GKANITE MONTHLY.

��A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, HISTORY AND STATE PROGRESS.

��VOL. 1.

��APRIL, 1878.

��NO. 11.

��HON. JOSHUA G. HALL.

��The recent reappointment of Hon. Josh- ua G.Hall of Dover as U.S. District Attor- ney for the District of New Hampshire, by calling public attention to his name, renders a biographical sketch of this gentleman particularly appropriate at this time.

Mr. Hall was born in the town of Wake- field, November 5, 1828, and is therefore in the fiftieth year of his age. He is a lineal descendant of that John Hall who was one of the early settlers of Dover, and a Deacon of the First Parish Church from 1655 to 1693. His grandfather, Samuel Hall, removed from Dover to what was soon after incorporated as Wakefield, about the year 1770, being among the first settlers of that town. His father (also named Joshua G. Hall), was engaged in mercantile life, and was long a prominent citizen of Wakefield, taking an active part in public and po- litical affairs, and representing the town for a number of years in the General Court. His wife was Betsey Plumer, a daughter of Hon. Beard Plumer of Milton, who represented the Fifth Dis- trict in the State Senate for the years 1810, 1811,1812, 1813 and 1816, and a granddaughter of Hon. John Plumer of Rochester, one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas subsequent to

��the Revolution, and who died in 1816, at the age of 96 years. They had five children, the youngest of whom is the subject of this sketch. Two brothers and a sister, still living, all reside at Union Village in Wakefield.

Joshua Gilman Hall derives his middle name from his great grandfather, Jeremiah Gilman, (father of his grand- mother Hall) who was a Captain under Stark at Bennington, and had previously held a similar commissson in the old French and Indian War — one of the his- toric family of Gilmans of Exeter, a na- tive of that town, and one of the early settlers of Wakefield. He received his college preparatory education at the well-known Gilmanton Academy, then under the charge of Charles Tenney, and entered Dartmouth College in August, 1847, graduating from that institution in 1851. Among his classmates in college were George William Burleigh and Ed- ward Ashton Rollins, Prof. Elihu T. Quiraby, and ex-Congressman Willard of Vermont. Making choice of the legal profession he entered the office of the late Hon. Daniel M. Christie of Dover, where he remained several years, and through dilligent study and the wise in- struction of his eminent preceptor, he laid the foundation for the substantial

�� �