Hall Family

THE HALLS OF MUNCY FARMS.— Upon the failure of Samuel Wallis, who had been for many years the agent of the Holland Land Company, a portion of his lands in Lycoming county, known as the Muncy Farms, passed into the hands of Henry Drinker, of Philadelphia, who in 1806 sold them to Robert Coleman, of Cornwall Furnace, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Coleman’s daughter, Elizabeth, had married in 1790 Charles Hall, the fifth son of Lieut. Col. Elisha Hall, of Maryland, and at this time Mr. Hall was practicing law in Sunbury, where he had built up a large client age, and also acquired several tracts of land in Lycoming county.

The Muncy Farms, inherited by Mrs. Hall from her father, comprised 7,000 acres, and Charles Hall also owned 4,000 acres in the northern part of what is now Lycoming county and the southern part of Sullivan, north of the Muncy Farms. It was upon this historic domain that Fort Muncy was situated. It was built in 1778 by General Hartley, and had a four-pound cannon and four swivel guns. In 1778 the garrison consisted of 200 men, with Capt. Andrew Walton in command. On the 27th of April, 1779, thirteen men were killed by the Indians, and on the 15th of May General Hand came with a reinforcement of 100 men. In 1780 the garrison numbered fifty strong. In 1782 the fort was rebuilt with stone, and it has ever since been matter of tradition in this locality that Hessians were employed upon the work. The fort was finally demolished in 1847 by the tenant on the farms, who said with considerable satisfaction: "I have gotten rid of that old pile of stones." There are at present no outlines of the fort left, the Reading railroad having run through the site, and of the relics there remain only a few rusty implements of war and a large collection of Indian arrows. There is also on the Farms an Indian burial ground, from which some of the most interesting relics obtained in this part of the State have been taken. One of the first grist mills in this region was built upon the Farms by Wallis, and Martin Ault, the present farmer for W. Coleman Hall, is the grandson of the first miller. Five generations of Aults have lived upon the Farms in the employ of the Wallis and Hall families. The mill was abandoned in 1837.

Mrs. Charles Hall added largely to the mansion house built by Wallis in 1769. She employed the contractor by whom the State capitol building at Harrisburg was erected, and both contracts were in progress at the same time. The materials were transported to the Farms by boat from Harrisburg. The large elm trees now standing east of the mansion were planted by Mrs. Samuel Wallis. When her husband was clearing the land to build she remonstrated against the removal of all the shade trees, to which he replied that he was paying to have the land cleared. But in the night, with the assistance of a negro boy, she planted the trees, and when Wallis saw them in the morning he said: "As they are planted, let them remain." They now shade the drive to the mansion, and constitute one of the most attractive features of the estate.

After the death of her husband in 1821 Mrs. Charles Hall came to reside in Lycoming county, but soon after removed to Lancaster, leaving her eldest son, Robbert Coleman Hall, who had married Sarah Ann Watts, daughter of Judge Watts, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to look after the Muncy Farms; for a time he remained in charge of them, but finally returned to Carlisle, where he practiced law until his death. Upon his removal Mrs. Hall, when her children had all grown up, returned to her home in Lycoming county, and there remained until her death, in 1859. In 1848 her son James came from Greenwood Furnace, where he had been for a number of years the owner of a large iron works, and became his mother’s agent for her estate in Lycoming county; he continued to live with her until her death, and until the year 1868, when he removed to Philadelphia. There he died in 1882, leaving one son, William Coleman, who then returned to Lycoming county, and is the present occupant of the Muncy Farms.

Of the family who have been in public life, Charles Hall was offered at the close of the Revolutionary war the position of commissioner to adjust the claims growing out of that war, with his residence in London. Of Mrs. Hall’s grandchildren, Norman Hall, the son of Robert Coleman Hall, has represented the XXVIth district in Congress, and is a large and prosperous iron manufacturer in Sharon, Mercer county, Pennsylvania; Reginald, another grandson, removed early in life to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he became a prominent lawyer; Charles, another grandson, was among the original "forty-niners" in California, and is now the president of a railroad in the western part of Pennsylvania; another grandson of Mrs. Hall, Henry Rawle, has filled the position of State treasurer of Pennsylvania, and at present lives on one of the Muncy Farms, which he inherited from his mother. Among the descendants of Charles Hail may also be mentioned Judge McClay Hall, of Bradford county, Pennsylvania; Lewis Hall, of Harrisburg, ex-Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; Francis Rawle, a prominent lawyer of Philadelphia, and eight grandsons who served in the late war.

History of Lycoming County, Pa 1892