Edward M. Hall, M.D.
Edward M. Hall, M.D. has been a resident of Delaware, Ohio, since 1889. In 1862, when 16 years of age, he enlisted in the One Hundred and Twenty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, but, being under age and size, he was at first rejected by the mustering officer, who afterwards, when assured by the Colonel of the regiment that he was competent to perform the clerical duties to which he had already been assigned, permitted bis name to remain on the rolls.
He served with his regiment till shortly after the battle of Chickamauga when, for special service rendered Gen. James B. Stednian, he was appointed by him his division postmaster.
On the Atlanta campaign, however, he took up the duties of a soldier, and on the 6th day of August, when his division was occupying an important and hazardous position, received a gunshot fracture of his left thigh and was sent to the field hospital, where he had careful attention from the late Dr. T. B. Williams of this city, who was then division surgeon. A few weeks afterwards, on being transferred from Chattanooga to Nashville, Tennessee, the hospital train was thrown from the track and he was so severely injured that be was compelled to remain in the hospital many months.
While in general hospital at Jeffersonville, Indiana, and still obliged to use crutches, he was appointed executive clerk to the board of surgeons of the hospital. At the time Gen. Sherman's army was ordered to Louisville, Kentucky, to be mustered out of service, many soldiers from the hospitals, he among the number, were detailed to prepare the muster-out rolls. His assignment was that of chief clerk in the office of Col. Flint at Gen. Palmer's headquarters, where he remained from May till August, 1865, when he was mustered out of service.
At Shelbyville, Tennessee, in 1863, he was taken sick with the prevailing camp disease, from the effects of which he has never fully recovered.
On returning home, broken in health and still suffering from his wound, he was obliged to abandon the idea of a university education, and spent such time as he was able during the next two or three years in reading, preparatory to taking up the study of medicine, which he did, later, graduating in 1871.
In 1874, Dr. Hall was married to Laura Beaver Nevius, daughter of Aaron C. Nevius of Fredericktown, Ohio. The Nevius family is of Dutch extraction, Aaron C. Nevius being fifth in descent from Johannes Nevius, who after being graduated from the University of Leyden, emigrated to New Amsterdam, now New York, in 1651, and in 1653, at its organization, became a member of the Court of Burgomaster and Schepens, serving seven years as Schepen. and afterwards as city secretary, which office he held when the city surrendered to the English in 1664.
The wife of Aaron C. Nevius, Sarah Beaver Nevius, was a daughter of Rev. Peter Beaver, of the Philadelphia Conference, and a granddaughter of George Beaver, a Revolutionary soldier. She, also, was an aunt of ex-Gov. James A. Beaver of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Hall's maternal ancestors emigrated to New England about the middle of the eighteenth century. David Brown and Hardy Rundall, great-grandfathers, David Brown from Scotland, making his permanent home at Greenwich, Connecticut, and Hardy Rundall from England, at the nearby town of Norwalk.
During the Revolutionary war. when the English troops, in 1770, raided Norwalk, Fairfield and New Haven. Hardy Rundall, Jr., a colonel of light dragoons in the English army, took leave of his family at Norwalk, after which he sailed for England, not to return.
His paternal ancestors settled in New Jersey early in the eighteenth century in the vicinity of Morristown, where his grandfather. Caleb Hall, was born in 1780. His grandmother, Sarah Anderson, was a daughter of Col. Richard Clough Anderson, a well known Revolutionary soldier. Three children have been born to Dr. and Mrs. Hall: Mary, who died in 1893, in her seventeenth year, while attending the Ohio Wesleyan University; Aletheia. who married Philo M. Buck, Jr., after their graduation from the O. W. U, and who reside in St. Louis, Mo.; Edward M. Jr.. who after graduating from the Ohio Wesleyan University, took up the study of law and graduated from the law department of Harvard College, and is now practicing law in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Hall is a member of the American Medical Association, the State Medical and County Medical Societies, and was president of the County Society in 1905.
While not seeking political preferment, he has taken great interest in political questions since his boyhood, and has given ready support to such measures as have had for their object improved conditions or better citizenship.
At the time of his removal to this city, he was serving his fourth term as a member of the Board of Education of Fredericktown, and was a member of the Board of Examining Surgeons for Pensions for Knox County, Ohlo.
For about twelve years he has been president of the Board of Directors and Trustees of Oak Grove Cemetery Company, and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Delaware Young Men's Christian Association since its organization.
From 20th Century History of Delaware County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Edited and compiled by James R. Lytle, Delaware, Ohio, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908
Dr. Edward M. Hall has been engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery since 1871, when he graduated from the Homeopathic Hospital College at Cleveland, Ohio. After taking his degree in medicine, he located in Fredericktown, Ohio, where he soon gained a satisfactory practice and the good will and respect of the people of that community, and was honored by them in being elected, for many years in succession, a member of their Board of Education, which position he held, as well as that of Pension Examiner for Knox County, when he removed to this city in 1889. With the experience gained in an active practice of nearly twenty years and. having taken a post-graduate course in medicine previous to resuming practice here, he from the first took rank with the leading physicians of the county. He is a member of the American Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society, and at the re-organization of the Delaware County Medical Society he was chosen its vice-president, and on the following year its president.
From 20th Century History of Delaware County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Edited and compiled by James R. Lytle, Delaware, Ohio, Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908