HALL, Willard

1780–1875

Concise Biography

HALL, Willard, a Representative from Delaware; born in Westford, Middlesex County, Mass., on December 24, 1780; attended the public schools and Westford Academy; graduated from Harvard University in 1799; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1803 and commenced practice in Dover, Del.; secretary of state of Delaware 1811-1814; elected as a Democratic Republican to the Fifteenth Congress; reelected to the Sixteenth Congress and served from March 4, 1817, until January 22, 1821, when he resigned; unsuccessful candidate in 1820 for reelection to the Seventeenth Congress; again secretary of state in 1821; member of the Delaware state senate in 1822; appointed United States district judge for Delaware and served from May 6, 1823, until December 6, 1871, when he resigned; moved to Wilmington, Del., in 1825; compiler of the Revised Code of Delaware in 1829; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1821; president of the Wilmington School Board 1852-1870; died in Wilmington, Del., May 10, 1875; interment in Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Historical Society of Delaware

Wilmington, DE
Papers: 1816-1877, 1 folder. Personal, business, and congressional papers and correspondence and photographs. Finding aid in repository.

Harvard University
Law School Library

Cambridge, MA
Papers: 1825-1832, 1 folder. Correspondence from Hall to Delaware judge Nicholas Ridgely.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Papers: In John Middleton Clayton papers, 1798-1868, 13 containers. Includes a long letter dated July 1, 1856 from Hall to Clayton on the Kansas troubles. Index.

The Morgan Library and Museum

New York, NY
Papers: 1816, 1 item. A letter from Hall to Caesar A. Rodney concerning the United States Bank.
Papers: 1860, 1 item. A letter from Hall to Sarah Brown.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Bates, Daniel Moore. Memorial address of the life and character of Willard Hall. Wilmington: The Historical Society of Delaware, 1879.

Hall, Willard. Address of the Hon. Willard Hall ... before the convention of the Lords-Day, held in Baltimore, on the 10th day of January, 1944. [Baltimore: N.p., 1944?]

------. Defence [sic] of the American Sunday School Union, against the charges of its opponents, in an address delivered at the first anniversary of the New Castle County Sabbath School Union, March 26, 1828. Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1831.

------. A plea for the Sabbath: Addressed to the legal profession in the United States. Baltimore: Baltimore Sabbath Association, 1845.

Harris, Charles R. From Apathy to Awareness; the Contributions of Willard Hall to Delaware Education. Philadelphia: Dorrance, [1968].

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