Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1904-04-26
HALL IS At LIBERTY
COUNCIL BLUFFS WIFE MUIR
DERER PARDoNED BY STATE
LEGISLATURE.
is Mere Than 80 Years Old and Has
Had a checkered Career - Drove
Stage During the Early Days OF the
Middle West - Has Cancer Now.

Council Bluffs, April %. = The par
don of Henry. or as he was generally
known. Hank" Hall has been receiv-
ed by County Clerk Reed. 1t is dat
ed April 16 and made to take effect
April 1S. Hall was sentenced on
March 26, 1891 to life Imprisonment
for the murder of his wife while they
were living in little three room cot
tage on Logan street. The murder
occurred on the morning of July 16,
1890 following a quarrel resulting
from Halls wife refusing to give him
money she had earned as scrub wo-
man and which he demanded to con-
tinue a drunken spree. Hall was II
years of age at the time Of the trag-
edy and his wife was fully as old,
frail and infirm.
Halls pardon bears the usual condi-
tions that he shall live an upright life
and provides for its revocation if he
again becomes a frequenter of sa-
looms. Hall has been imprisoned thir-
| teen years and is consequently now
| over CA years of aga.. He is very fee
BILE and is said to be dying from a
cancer. that has appeared upon his
neck.
Story Of Halls Career.
In an interview Warden Hunter told
the following history of Halls life as
submitted to Mr.. Hunter by the prison
er:
Hall was born about 1918 or 1873
near Portland, Maine. Ancestors were
Irish. His parents moved from Maine
/ tte,
/! Charlestown, which is now a part of
Boston. His father was shipbuild-
| er. Hall spent his boyhood days in
and around Boston; saw Bunker Hill
monument in it's construction. He left
his home when about Is years of age
and came to Cleveland. Ohio, where he
began his career as stage driver, re-
j naming at Cleveland about one year,
when he came on to Chicago, (about
1850 He drove stage out from Chica-
go west for the firm of j. Frink and
M. O.Walker for probably two or three
years. He states that at the time he
came to Chicago there were but four
or five houses north of the Chicago riv-
er; that the town was very small; but
two hotels that he can remember of
one frame and the other brick, the lat.
ter being the only brick building in
the town that he can recollect Of
Came from Chicago to Galena, would
see once in while cabin on the vast
prairie. between the two places.
The Old Days.
"There was stage station at what is
now Elgin, but no watches were being
made there at that time and no butter
shipped from there. Galena at that
time, he says, was nearly as large as
Chicago. He drove stage from Galene
to Dubuque for two CT three years
Dubuque was then considered a gooc
steamboat town he says, and covered
about two blocks (but he says there
was small brewery there even at tha
early date.) For a number of years
following this he drove stage in north
eastern Iowa in and around Dubuque
and McGregor, driving on the lint
from Dubuque to Iowa City, goins
through where is now located the tow
OF Anamosa before there was hous,
there, little thinking that some g.
years later the great massive ston,
structure called the state penitentiar,
would lie across the path of the olt
on many a starlit and stormy night
and he would be one of the 'lifers' i'm
prisoned there. He was on the lin
from Ottumwa to Council Bluffs durin
the gold fever of 49, when so man,
emigrants were crossing the plains t
California. He drove on the line al
the way from Omaha to Denver at dill
ferent times, driving long time be
tween Omaha and Ft. Kearney, neve
driving west of Denver except to a ste
: ton up in the mountains called Ger
trail Station. He was driving betwee
the Julesburg and Valley City station
at the time when the famous Joh
SHADES was at the height of his motor
ety. SHADES was a notorious OUTLAY
who had been hired by the expires
road agents. He (Slades) committe
some fifteen or twenty murders in an
about Julesburg, but protected the e1
press company as he was hired to de
All Carried Guns.
Hall says that the stage driver
had to go armed and when there wa