Willard Preble Hall Sr.

Willard Preble Hall Sr. was brother of William Augustus Hall, and son of John Hancock Hall (who is buried in the Hall Family Cemetery at Darksville), inventor of the M1819 breech loading rifle. He was born in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) on May 9, 1820. He attended private schools and graduated from Yale University in 1839, and then studied law. In 1841 he accompanied his father to Randolph County. Missouri, and was admitted to the bar in Huntsville the same year. He then took up practice in Sparta, Missouri. He was appointed to circuit attorney in 1843 in Saint Joseph.

With the start of the Mexican-American War he enlisted as a private in the First Missouri Cavalry Regiment. By the end of the war he held the rank of Lieutenant. Following the war he was appointed by General Stephen Kearny along with Col. Alexander Doniphan to write a law code known as the Kearny code to govern the newly annexed territory. He also accompanied the Mormon Battalion to California. The battalion was a volunteer force consisting nearly entirely of members of the Church of Later Day Saints. They fought in several engagements on the way to California including the capture of Tucson.

Hall then returned to Missouri and ran for Congress. He served in the Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second Congresses from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1853 as a member of the Democratic Party. In 1854 he returned to Saint Joseph and practiced law and lost in a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1856. In July of 1861, with the Secessionist Missouri Government lead by Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson in exile, Hall was appointed Lt. Governor by the State Convention. Hall served as Lt. Governor until January 31, 1864 when Governor Hamilton Rowan Gamble died and he assumed his office. Hall served as governor until January 2, 1865. He then returned to Saint Joseph where he resumed his law practice. He died there on November 3, 1882, and is buried in St. Joseph’s Mount Mora Cemetery. His son Willard Preble Hall Jr. served as judge for the Kansas City Court of Appeals.