San Joaquin County Biographies
Ref: Page 1600-1601
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 1/26/2010
JOSEPH E. HALL
A successful business man known throughout San Joaquin County for his progressive methods, is Joseph E. Hall, the managing director of Hall Bros. 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, Mich., on February 6, 1852, the son of Thomas E. and Azuba (Eckley) Hall, both natives of Rutland, Vt., 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, Ill., 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 San 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, Colo., 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.
History of
SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
With A
Biographical Review
of
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present
HISTORY BY
George H. Tinkham
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1923
San Joaquin County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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