The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-01-27
NINETY AND NINE.
The Age to which Mrs. Johanna
Hall Has Almost Attained-Inter-
view With the Lady.

Mrs Johanna Hall of ogden saw the
century come in and from present ap-
pearances she viii see it go out-the
next century well on towards its teens.
The writer has often heard doubts ex-
pressed as TO whether anyone ever did
really live TO be a hundred years old.
and has heard them expressed here in
Ogden quite recently
ITS all q mistake" said one plain
spoken doubter; Il don't believe there
is anyone in the west anywhere near
that old, and but very few IN the
world"
With this in mind The Herald repor-
ter set out TO find who was the Oldest
person in this vicinity. SO far as he
could ascertain Mrs. Johanna Hall, Inv
ing with her son, Mark Han, at 2lZ2
Washington avenue, is that person.
The writer called at the house and
was very courteoUSly received by Mr..
Hail. and by him introduced TO MS
mother.
Mrs. Han, d bright-faced old lady,
with q good supply OF White mar,
confbed over q shapely head, was SIT
ting in a rocker and reading. She
greeted the reporter with hearty
hand-clasp, ana converSed freely With
him throughout his visit. There IS no
question but that she is but little short
OF year in being a century old.
To be exact, she will be 80 years OLD
on April next. Unlike many women
with less cOmely features than she
possesses, Mrs Hall is not afraid TO
tell her age.
She was born, SO she told the repor-
ter at the town OF Goshen, in New
Hampshire, April >, 1891 soon after
wards her parents came away out
west to the wild, undeVeloped country
about the little town then and now
known as Buffalo, n. y.
She grew up ABOUT thirty miles from
Buffalo, and distinctly remembers the
attack on that town and the burning
of the same by the British in the war
Of 1872
she was married in New York at the
age of Is to Joseph Hall, her maiden
name being Johanna Chalice. She dis
tinctly remembers the connection with
which the war of 1872 had on her mar
rage, for she explained that in those
days the men With young wives We're
not required to serve in the army, and
she thought this condition rather has
tened Mr.. Hail, if not in his wooing,
at least in his wedding, and the re-
porter got the impression that she con-
Sidered this one Of the good things
blown by the Ill wind of war. How
ever Nj. Hall did enlist, and his ser
vices were even more patriotic from
the fact that he could not have been
obliged 10 do so.
Soon after his return from the army
they removed to the south and lived
near Lake Cayuga for a number OF
years. The family. however, seems to
have been attracted by the west, for
in 1925 they removed TO Putnam coun-
ty, Indiana.
The reporter inquired to what town
and learned that there was not any
town therea bouts in those days, but
Greencastle is Dhe nearest town TO the
place now. She remembers distinctly
Ehe troubles in New York with the Mo-
hawks and Blackhawks.
There is one tribe of them lives
there near Buffalo now" she said, and
appealed to her son to tell her which
one, and apOlogizing for her lapse Of
memory by saying that it was q. long
time since she was there.
MIR. Hall supplied the information
that the tribe was the Mohawks, and
THAI they were still there, although his
mother had been absent from there
about eighty-fiVe years. She lived in
Indiana until about five years ago. and
has seen her native country grow and
develop beyond the most eXtravagant
predictions of the most eXtravagant
dreamers Of those days.
She was going on three years of age
when Washington died, but makes no
pretense Of remembering anything
about him, except what she has since
read. Since then her country has
grown west to the other ocean.
At that time Fulton's steamboat had
not been thought Of; railroads never
dreamed of, and telegraph and tele-
phone facilities utterly incomprehensi-
bic to the public conception.
Size remembered clearly her son Mar
ion going from Indie Ia to fight in the
civil war, and how he came back and
tried to get Joshua to go.
Mrs. Hall is the mother of ten chill
dren. Eight Of the ten grew to man
hood and Womanhood, and of these
only two are now living. One is Mark
Hall, Ogden's we'll known citizen, and
the other is Joseph Hall, living in Jas
per county, Missouri. There are five
generations OF the family living in Og-
den. The eldest of the line is, of
course, Mrs. Johanna Hall; next comes
her son Mark, followed by his daugh-
ter, Julia Ann Hall Bingham.
Mr.. and Mrs. Sanford Bingham have
a son, Sanford H. Bingham, who in
turn has a son, Sanford NJ. Bingham,
aged two months. Mr.. Marx Hall has
about $50 immediate relatives in this
neighborhood and he is planning a
grand family reunion next October He
says he would like to have it on April
3, but for the fact that q lot of other
members of the Hall family live where
spring floods would make it impossi-
bic for them TO get out in time. He
expects at least 400 Halls here at the
reunion.
To return to Mrs. Hall She lived
in Indiana with her husband until he
died and since then with her daugh-
ter until she died about five years ago.
Then her son here went back and
brought his mother out here.
The old lady is a great reader. She
was reading without the aid Of
glasses when the reporter entered. She
said she reads readily without glasses,
end though she forbore to mention it.
the visitor saw that she noticed that
in that respect she had him at dis
advantage. 81 wore glasses q few
times" she said, lust 20 please the
neighbors, who said I ought to have
'enn, but I found they were more bother
than they were worth. so when they
got lost l let them stay lost"
She was fine singer when a girl.
When I was married 1 knew seven
ty-five songs" she said. At the re-
quest Of her son she sang one of the
old-tine Songs. She sang 1t through
in a voice which, though not strong,
was clear, and she sang the thirty
verses of the song through with hardly
9 break. The song was of the old time
ballad style. and was sung so as to be
perfectly understood.
Mrs. Hall gets in and out OF car
riage unaided, and lately insisted on
walking unaided up three flights of
stairs to have her picture taken with
representa- tives Of four other genera