Chapter Two – Rev. John Hall: Growing the Frontier Church

In 1820, the prominent name of Rev. John Hall (1788-1869) enters the history of St. Peter’s Church with his appointment as lay chairman of a 3-member committee charged with securing a proper place of worship for the fledgling congregation. Later ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, Rev. Hall would serve a 28-year tenure as rector of St. Peter’s over two calls from 1824-34 and 1836-54.

A native of Massachusetts and of Welsh ancestry, Rev. John Hall was the oldest of fourteen children born to Moses Hall, a Revolutionary War veteran and cloth dresser turned farmer. At the age of 19, John Hall began to study medicine, studies that were ended by his family’s migration to Ohio. John Hall traveled alone on horseback to Ashtabula County, Ohio in 1809, were he secured a job as a clerk in an Ashtabula general store operated by his cousin, ardent Episcopalian Hall Smith.

The two cousins boarded in the home of Rev. Joseph Badger, a Presbyterian missionary feted as the first Christian missionary in Ohio beginning in 1800. In 1813, John Hall married Badger’s daughter, Sarah and started a family.

Originally a Congregationalist, John Hall’s interest in the Episcopal Church was piqued by Smith’s readings from the Prayer Book and his willingness to answer Hall’s questions about the Episcopal denomination.

Noted the Rev. John Keller of Rev. Hall’s conversion from Congregationalism to the Episcopal faith in the April 17, 1909 edition of The Living Church, "In the early part of the last century appeals from the Western Reserve were sent to the city of New York for reading matter--Bibles, books, pamphlets, and other literature. Packing boxes and other receptacles were placed at the corners of lower Broadway and cross-streets. Somewhere in the neighborhood of Trinity Church . . . . . . . a Prayer Book was deposited as a gift for the Western people. After a long journey by wagon-road . . . . the box of books arrived at Ashtabula…The Rev. Joseph Badger . . . was the censor of the reading matter so received. At the time a young school teacher, John Hall, a Congregationalist. . . . was living with the minister's family, and he was asked to assist in the censorship. The Prayer Book came into his hands. Curiosity led him to read it carefully; it became his textbook on the Church and her ways. Convinced by a more careful perusal that he must seek Holy Orders, he sought the advice of the rector of St. Peter's Church."

It is of interest to note that both the Rev. Searle and the first Bishop of Ohio, Dr. Philander Chase, were also converted to the Episcopal Church by reading the Prayer Book.

Hall later embraced the Episcopal Church and, at the urging of Bishop Philander Chase, became a candidate for Holy Order in June 1820, placed under the care of St. Peters’ rector, Rev. Searle, for the completion of his studies. Ordained a deacon by Bishop Chase in June 1822 at the Diocesan Convention at Worthington, Rev. Hall was ordained priest in August 1823 in Ashtabula.

Recalled grandson Rev. Francis Hall of his grandfather, Rev. John Hall, “…He always read Daily Morning and Evening Prayer in his study, and would take me into his lap and explain the daily lessons to me. To him the Bible was the Church's book, and to be interpreted as concerned throughout with Jesus Christ and His Church. He knew nothing, of course, about modern criticism; but he fixed in my childish mind a conception of the Old Testament which has saved me wholly from anxiety concerning the ‘results’ of biblical criticism. Important parts of these ‘results’ I have accepted, but this has not required me to modify my conception of biblical inspiration or to lower my recognition of the divine authority of the Bible in the least. And my experience under him convinces me that, when the Bible is taught to the young as God's collection of memorials of the checkered growth of true religion, and of the gradual revelation of Jesus Christ and His Church, the teaching will never need correction--will never be outgrown.

Conducting parish worship services during the many absences of the circuit-riding parish founder Rev. Searle, Rev. Hall also regularly accompanied Rev. Searle on his many mission trips across the Western Reserve, where he was affectionately known as “Father Hall” or sometimes “Parson Hall.”

Recalled grandson Rev. Francis Hall of his grandfather, “I spent a night some years since with an old farmer near Unionville, Ohio. He noticed my clerical clothes; and walking up and down with sharp glances at me, said, ‘They don't make such ministers now-a-days as we used to have!’ (Pause). ‘You remind me of a parson that was a parson. You have the same name.’ I said ‘Are you speaking of Father Hall?’ He answered, ‘Yes; did you know him?’ I replied, ‘He was my Grandfather.’ The old man rushed forward, completely thawed out, and grasped my hand in both of us, saying ‘I am glad to meet you.’ He then told me that my Grandfather made himself acquainted with everybody, far and wide, and was held in the uttermost reverence; and that all called him "Father." Everyone felt honoured by a chance to entertain him as long as he liked; and he used to travel hundreds of miles every year on horseback over the country.”

The “universally loved and respected” Rev. Hall was elected rector of St. Peter’s following Rev. Searle’s 1824 resignation as rector. Active in the community, Rev. Hall served as Ashtabula’s Justice of the Peace and was “active…in village affairs of all kinds.” And that much of the city’s early history survives is thanks in large part to the efforts of Rev. Hall, who chronicled Ashtabula’s history in an informative and in-depth series of 1856 newspaper columns in the Times.

Rev. Hall’s rectorship was a period of great growth for St. Peter’s – in both facilities, ministries, and worship.

Outgrowing rented quarters in Ashtabula’s Town Hall, plans were laid in 1827-28 by parishioners Gad and George C. Loveland during Rev. Hall’s tenure for the 1829 construction of a $2375 Gothic-styled woodframe church anchoring Hubbard (South) Park at 4901 Main Avenue on the southern end of downtown Ashtabula. The church, free from debt, was consecrated by Bishop Chase in August 1829. The church stood for 134 years between 1829-1963. Several additions were made to the original church – the c. 1847 “Hubbard Ell” on the north side of the church, an expansion that also included a higher bell tower and a new pulpit; and the 1855 expansion, which saw the western rear wall extended by an additional 16 feet.

Rev. Hall also oversaw the 1843 establishment of a mission congregation in Plymouth Township, the since-closed St. Matthew’s Church.

Exhibiting an early passion for education, Rev. Hall studied Latin and Greek as a child under the Rev. Dr. Hyde, a Congregational minister at Lenox, Massachusetts. Prior to entering the Episcopal ministry, Rev. Hall taught fourteen terms in the era’s “common schools,” teaching a curriculum that specialized in the primary branches of education, rhetoric, Latin and Greek. In his private journal, Hall noted that he gave his students instruction in “manners, morals, and the rudiments of Christianity. His textbooks included “the Bible, and such Catechisms as were preferred by the parents of the children, chiefly the Westminster Catechism, . . . a short Catechism of the Methodists, and the Church Catechism.”

An ambitious parish ministry during Rev. Hall’s longtime rectorate was the 1850 establishment of the parish’s parochial St. Peter’s School, regarded by historians as the first permanent Episcopal parochial school in the United States. A firm believer in youth education, as evidenced by his establishment of the first Sunday School program in Ohio, Rev. Hall had long dreamed of organizing a parochial school to educated the children of his parishioners in church doctrine, Christian ethics, and the other branches of learning. In April 1850, the vestry set the works in motion to make Rev. Hall’s dream a reality.

Recalled Hall in an 1856 newspaper column of St. Peters’ “flourishing” parochial school of secular and religious learning, “The rector of St. Peter’s, Ashtabula, having long entertained the sentiment that while learning is auxiliary to religion, religion sanctifies learning, was exceedingly desirous for the establishment of a school in which, under the auspices of the church, and drawn away from extraneous adverse influences, and collected together under the care and guidance of the rector and his assistants, his young parishioners might pursue the proper and requisite course for the attainment of sound and good secular and religious education united. Thus he desired to have the means used which, by God’s blessing on them, might imbue the minds and hearts of the lambs of his flock of Christ in this part of His fold, with sound learning, religious knowledge, and the principles and practices of Christian morality, virtue and piety. These objects could not be attained in any but a parochial school; and therefore a portion of the members of the parish proceeded…”

A building committee headed by R.W. Griswold, George Willard, and several term village mayor Lorenzo Tyler selected a site south of the c. 1829 church and oversaw construction of a 2-story woodframe structure that would serve as the school building and later as the Parish House between 1850-1923, a development that freed the church proper “from all teaching, business, or other purposes inconsistent with the sanctity of a temple consecrated to the worship and service of Almighty God, and not recognized in her liturgy or laws.”

The school’s initial slate of board officers included rector Rev. John Hall, assistant rector and principal Rev. George F. Richards, clerk/treasurer George Willard, and trustees Elihu Strong, R.W. Griswold, and Lorenzo Tyler. St. Peter’s School opened in October 1850.

Wrote Raymond Bailey St. John M.A. of the establishment of St. Peter’s School in his 1939 Study of Ashtabula, “The failure of the (Ashtabula) Academy (1832-55) and the common schools to provide a continuous and thorough course of study, coupled with the desire to provide their children with a sound religious and moral training, led a number of parishioners of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to establish a parochial school in 1850. For nine years this school served its function in the community, but finally unable to continue financially in competition with the growing popularity of free public education, it was forced to close.”

St. Peter’s School offered a rigorous course of study that would likely challenge most of today’s college students, offering year-round studies (with only breaks for Easter and Christmas) in a variety of subjects including church doctrine, mathematics, music, Christian ethics, astronomy, geography, literature, philosophy, and the ancient languages of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

Clergy instructors included rectors Rev. Hall and Rev. Homer Wheeler, as well as a successor of assistants including founding principal Rev. George F. Richards, Rev. Albert Bingham, and Rev. John A. Bowman. Rev. Richards, who died beloved and much mourned in May 1851, was succeeded as principal and teacher by Robert Hutchinson. Assisting the clergy instructors were music teacher Mariette Fuller and a group of “tutoresses” including A.A. Strong, Harriet Sabin, Julia M. Dickinson, Mary Elizabeth Hubbard Walker, Lucia Hall, and Emily Blakeslee.

Feted as “a faithful, laborious and affectionate pastor of the fold of Christ,” ill health saw Rev. Hall tender his retirement resignation as rector of St. Peter’s in April 1854, though he continued to assist at St. Peter’s as he was able and was said to be “on the most intimate and enjoyable terms” with his two successors, the Rev. Homer Wheeler and the Rev. James Bonnar.

Rev. Hall also continued his ministry across the Western Reserve in his retirement as his health allowed, supplying at parishes scattered about northeast Ohio in Unionville, Rome, Windsor, Plymouth, Jefferson, Painesville, Dover, Norwalk, and Medina, as well as Grace Church, Cleveland and Trinity Church Home, Cleveland.

In April 1848, the vestry of Grace Church, Cleveland passed a resolution in tribute to Rev. Hall’s longtime ministry in the Diocese of Ohio, noting he w as “largely instrumental, under the direction of Divine Providence, in planting the Church in North Eastern Ohio” through his “untiring and persevering labours, from county to county, from town to town and from house to house,” efforts which were “ the means of disseminating and preserving among the early settlers on the Reserve a knowledge of the Apostolic Church of Christ…”

In January 1869, Rev. Hall died at the age of 80, buried at Ashtabula’s Chestnut Grove Cemetery following “an exceedingly impressive but simple funeral” at St. Peter’s.

Rev. Hall was interred at Chestnut Grove alongside St. Peters’ fonding rector, Rev. Roger Searle, atop a hill overlooking downtown Ashtabula and their beloved St. Peter’s Church. Chestnut Grove Cemetery is located about a mile south-southeast from St. Peter’s,