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The HALLs of Jamaica – Allegonda’s Legacy

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John Herman Hall

 

Three children of William Hall and Dorothy Gray Jackson are John Herman Hall b. 1803, Allegonda Ann Hall b. 1807, and Dorothy Rawleigh Hall b. 1810.

 

The stature of John Herman Hall can be seen in four ways:

1. He was the custodian of the original Family Register of family births, deaths and marriages in 1845.

2. He alone of the descendants of John Hall & Allegonda Boom owned a substantial portion of land in 1840.

3. He is one of the very few family members to appear in Wright (1966) "Monumental Inscriptions of Jamaica". He and his wife Jane Edgill are recorded on the mural tablets in the Parish Church of St Thomas in the Vale at Linstead.

4. He had two wives and descendants from both are still around today collecting genealogical data.

 

I suspect that part of the reason for (2) is that he was the son of Dorothy Gray Jackson and her father Robert Jackson was wealthy. However, I know nothing about John Herman's older brother Robert Jackson Hall apart from his birth, baptism and death.

 

The children of John Herman Hall are as follows:

 

John Herman Hall b. 29 May 1803, bap. 4 Dec 1803, d. 5 Mar 1867

m. 1 Feb 1826 Jane Edgill Hughes b. 1 Feb 1804, d. 19 Sep 1859

    Mary Ann Dorothy Hall b. 12 Nov 1826, bap. 29 Jul 1830

        m. 12 Nov 1845 George Rees d. 10 Aug 1851

        m. 1 Sep 1855 Edward Kinkead

    William James Edgill Hall b. 24 Apr 1832

    Francis Robert Paterson Hall b. 29 May 1833, d. 22 Feb 1859

        m. 1858 Mary Jane Cocking

    Henry Rice Hall b. 7 Nov 1834, d. 18 Feb 1873

    Ella Macfadyen Hall b. 29 May 1836, bap. 30 Dec 1838, d. 9 Feb 1889

        m. John McPhail b. 13 Mar 1813, d. 7 Jan 1887

    Jane Digby Gray Hall b. 23 Jul 1838, d. 24 Dec 1838

    Rosa Gordon Hall b. 29 Jun 1841, d. 30 Aug 1842

m. 1861 Jane Vidal b. 1822

    Charles Herman Vidal Hall b. 18 Mar 1865, d. 3 Mar 1963

    m. 17 Oct 1908 Edith Emily Masters b. 2 Dec 1880, d. 19 May 1963


The parish register actually has a different spelling of middle names at the Hall-Hughes marriage. It has Hermon and Edgehill.

 

John Herman Hall had some children baptised in Kingston. Other places associated with John Herman Hall are:

 

Grecian Regale, Saint Andrew       - born, 1803

Vinyard Pen, Saint Andrew                       - Mary Ann Dorothy born, 1826

Belmont, Saint Andrew                   - Other children born, 1832-1838, owned in 1840

Belgar, St Thomas in the Vale        - Rosa Gordon born, 1841

Hopewell, St Thomas in the Vale  - Rosa Gordon died, 1842, living there in 1845

Bybrook, St Thomas in the Vale    - died, 1867

 

The two sets of descendants known to me are through Ella Macfadyen Hall & her husband John McPhail, and through Charles Herman Vidal Hall & his wife Edith Emily Masters.

 

The partners of John Herman Hall probably had interesting lives as well. I'm a fraction short of knowing more about the family of Jane Edgill Hughes. The family register says she was the youngest daughter of the Reverend Rice Hughes, rector of Clarendon and was born in Yarmouth England. Confirmation of this comes from the IGI and from the following entry in the Kingston Parish Baptism Register:

 

"1807 July 2 Alexander Jackson son of the Revd Rice Hughes Rector of Clarendon & Mary his Wife born at Great Yarmouth Norfolk G Britain 3 July 1806"

 

The IGI doesn't have the marriage of Rice Hughes or list any other children.

 

The descendants of Jane Vidal have traced her ancestry back in detail. Perhaps now would be a good time to look at Appendix 5 "Descendants of: John Vidal". I printed this from a gedcom file kindly sent to me by Jeremy White, husband of Fiona Rachael Vidal-Hall. It explains the Vidals and their descendants far better than I could. Charles Herman Vidal Hall, the son of John Herman Hall and Jane Vidal, officially changed his name to Charles Herman Vidal-Hall on 30 Dec 1920 and all the later descendants have retained the Vidal-Hall surname.