My Family Tree

James Hall

Person Chart

Person Events

Event Type Date Place Description
Birth 1703 Ulster Province, Ireland
Immigration 1720 Philadelphia, PA
Marriage 1730 Derry, Dauphin County, PA
Religion Helped found Bethany Church in 1775.

Notes

Very little is known of the early life of James Hall, the founder of the Hall Family in America which he established in what is now called Iredell County, North Carolina. Although the exact place in Ireland and the date of his birth are not known, he was without doubt a native of Ulster Province, for his immediate ancestors were among the Scotch people established in Ireland in the seventeenth century by James I of England upon lands in Ulster confiscated from Irish rebels by the Crown of England.

While yet a young man, about the year 1720, he left his native Ireland for America, accompanied by his widowed mother. During the voyage his mother died and James landed on our shores an orphan boy, a stranger in strange land. His first employment was in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where large settlements of Scotch-Irish were being made. The next account of him, he had left the city and moved into the country. It was here that he met and married Prudence Roddy in 1730. They located in Derry, now Londonderry Township, in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. There, all of their children were born except Alexander, the youngest, who was born after they moved to North Carolina. It was much cheaper to live in North Carolina than Pennsylvania, due to less expensive land and fees.

In 1752 James and Prudence Hall moved to North Carolina and settled on Fifth Creek, about one mile southeast from the site of Bethany Church which he helped found in 1775. The tract of land on which they built their home was deeded to the Fort Dobbs Chapter of the D.A.R. by Dr. James King Hall, of Richmond, Virginia. Here one can see the spring that furnished the water for the household, and from the site where their house stood, marked by a lone walnut tree, the road to Bethany Church can be traced.@S7@