Last week, we learned about a missionary to Mexico, Miss Pearl Lillian Hall and her parents, Henry Harden (H.H.) Hall, Sr, and Martha Elizabeth Ross Hall of Goblintown, Patrick County, Virginia.
This week, we will look at Henry Harden Hall, Sr. and his first wife, Exony Turner; their parents, and their offspring. H. H. Hall Sr. was born to Rowland Hall and Elizabeth Rakes Hall on the 29th of May 1823 in Patrick County, Virginia. Rowland and Elizabeth had married in Bedford County on the third of May 1813.
Exony Turner was the daughter of Lewis Turner and Cynthia Turner who were married on the fifth of May 1817. Lewis and Cynthia’s marriage is listed in the Franklin County Marriage Bonds Index, 1786-1858, page 228. Several writings list Cynthia as a Foster, but I have been unable to prove it with a legal document.
In a document written by Jack Williamson about the history of the Goblintown Grist Mill, Jack Williamson wrote that Lewis Turner purchased 211 acres from Thomas Spencer one month before his marriage to Cynthia. Williamson wrote, “Lewis Turner was an accomplished blacksmith and gunsmith as well as farmer. On settling in Patrick County with his bride, he built a sizable log home just northwest of what is now Goblintown Road and set up a smithy close by in which he forged farm tools, gun barrels, wagon wheel rims and other things.”
Williamson speculated, “the pig iron was probably mined and smelted just two miles away on George Hairston’s land about Stuart’s Knob, a craggy hill towering 500 feet over Goblintown Creek and containing a rich lode of high-quality magnetite.”
Lewis Turner was very wise in purchasing land so near to the Union Iron Works Company which was formed by brothers, John and George Hairston III and their first cousin, Peter.
- H. Hall, Sr, and Exony Turner were married in Patrick County on the 13th of October 1845. In the 1850 census, cabinet maker H.H. and Exony were living next door to Exony’s widowed father, miller and blacksmith Lewis Turner, and his children, 32-year-old Ann and 24-year-old Jeremiah. Lewis Turner’s wife Cynthia had passed away in 1827, a year after the birth of their son Jeremiah. Lewis did not remarry and raised his three children on his own, based on census records that show no wife. It is very admirable that Lewis cared for his children and did not send them to live with relatives, as was often the case during these times.
- H. and Exony’s first child, Cynthia, was born on the tenth of September 1846, followed by daughter Exony Elizabeth in 1848. Two sons were born next, Lewis Pinkney, on the 30th of January 1851 and Henry Harden Hall, Jr. on the 16th of June 1853.
In 1854, H.H.’s brother, Blann and Exony’s sister, Ann, married on the 21st of December. In 1855, H.H. and Exony had another son, John and on the 4th of March 1856, Blann and Ann had a daughter, Exony Ann. Tragically, Ann died giving birth to their only child; Ann was 40 years old. In 1859, Blann died of pneumonia, leaving little Exony Ann in the care of her father’s brother, H.H. Hall, Sr. and her mother’s sister, Exony Turner Hall.
- H. and Exony had one more child, Jeremiah Blann Hall, born in 1864 when Exony was 41 years old. In 1865, H.H. and Exony’s oldest child, Cynthia married Confederate Veteran David Ross Cox, the son of Joseph and Nancy Lewis Cox. Lewis Pinkney was the next child of H. H. and Exony to marry at age 17 to 16-year-old Miss Malinda Virginia Stovall, the daughter of Joseph M. and Permelia Ruth Corn Stovall on the 3rd of December 1868.
Exony Elizabeth was the next child of H. H. and Exony to marry, choosing Lewis James Wood, the son of Stephen and Rachel Thomas Wood; the couple wed in October of 1869. Henry Harden Hall, Jr. married Ruth Elizabeth Turner, the daughter of Samuel Clayborn Turner and Nancy Stovall Turner on the 28th of November 1876 and John married Miss Sarah Thomas of Endicott. Sarah’s death record registered the 11th of February 1929 states her father is Pleasant Thomas and her mother is Fannie Fogerson, but her obituary in the Roanoke Times states she is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fleming Thomas.
Exony Ann, the daughter of Blann and Ann Turner Hall, and niece and foster daughter of H.H. and Exony Turner Hall, married John Isaac Wood on the 28th of January 1877. John Isaac was also the son of Stephen and Rachel Thomas Wood! So…..two first cousins, both named Exony, living in the same household with a mother/aunt& foster mother named Exony marry two brothers! This is why I love researching family history so much!
Exony Turner Hall passed away on the 12th of April 1886 and Jeremiah Blann, the youngest child of H.H. and Exony married Miss Elizabeth Martin on the 7th of August 1887. The young couple soon moved to Roanoke where Jeremiah worked as a blacksmith in the Norfolk and Western Railroad shops. How wonderful that he carried on the craft of his grandfather, Lewis Turner, who had passed away two years before at the age of ninety-one.
Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or 276-692-9626.
