Biography of William Cochran Hall, M. D.

William Cochran Hall, M. D., has lived at Coffeyville nearly thirty years. As a physician and surgeon he has been successful, as is indicated by the numerous professional relations he has enjoyed as physician and surgeon to a large number of the railway companies and other industrial organizations of that section of the state. But Doctor Hall’s usefulness has not been confined entirely within the lines of his profession. He is one of the men who have made Coffeyville a city. He has helped bring many of its industries and organizations, and has aided in numerous worthy enterprises inaugurated for the welfare of the community. He helped bring in manufacturing plants, helped to establish the opera house, and his influence and means have been connected in one way or another with many industrial plants of the city. As a member and president of the Commercial Club he was especially forward in this work, also assisted by taking stock in many business organizations.

Representing in ancestry some of the flower of old Virginia and colonial stock, Doctor Hall was born at Bell in Highland County, Ohio, October 29, 1860. As a boy he attended the public schools of Highland and Adams counties, Ohio, and took summer courses in different normals. Like many successful professional men he did his first work as a teacher. In 1880 he graduated from the normal department of the National Normal University at Lebanon under Professor Holbrook. He did his first school work as a teacher at the age of seventeen. He taught four terms and in the meantime took up the study of medicine at West Union, Ohio, and in 1885 was graduated M. D. from the College of Physicans and Surgeons at Baltimore. With all the heavy demands made upon his professional time, not to speak of his business and civic responsibilities, Doctor Hall has kept pace with the advance made in medBellical affairs during the thirty years since he graduated. In 1896 he took a course in the Chicago Policlinic and has pursued other courses in the medical schools of Chicago. He located for practice at Latham, Ohio, but after nine months, while still retaining the practice he had built up in that community, he moved his home to Sinking Springs, Ohio, where he remained about a year.

On April 25, 1887, Dr. Hall arrived in Coffeyville, which was then a comparatively young city, and deriving some of its chief importance from its position as the gate city into Indian Territory. Since that date, for thirty years, he has enjoyed a large general medical and surgical practice, but his reputation is particularly based upon his skill as a surgeon. His offices are at 818 Maple street, and he resides at 402 West Ninth street.

Doctor Hall is a member of the County and State Medical societies, the Southeastern Kansas Medical Society, and has served as president in both the County and Southeastern Kansas medical societies and the American Medical Association. He is division surgeon for the Missouri Pacific and St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway companies, is local surgeon for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, for the Santa Fe Railway Company, and is also surgeon for the Rea-Patterson Milling Company and the Lodowici-Celadon Company, and for several brick plants, smelters and other large corporations.

In a business way he is financially interested in the Mecca Hotel at Coffeyville and has some very extensive real estate holdings in the city besides a farm of 330 acres near Coffeyville. He is a director in the Condon National Bank, is president of the Coffeyville Gas and Fuel Company, and served as president of the Coffeyville Commercial Club, and it was during the time of his membership of this club that the organization succeeded in bringing to Coffeyville so many factories and industries. He also served as president of the board of education and as health officer. Fraternally Doctor Hall is affiliated with Coffeyville Lodge No. 102, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and was made junior warden the same night he completed his third degree. He is also a member of Wichita Consistory No. 2 of the Scottish Rite, and was originally a member of the Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Leavenworth, but now belongs to Mirzah Temple at Pittsburg, Kansas. He is a charter member of Coffeyville Lodge No. 279, Ancient Order United Workmen, a charter member of Camp No. 665, Modern Woodmen of America, a charter member of the Royal Neighbors, and a charter member of Coffeyville Lodge of Elks. He was formerly affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

On June 15, 1887, Doctor Hall was married in Highland County, Ohio, to Miss Sarah H. Hite. Her father was the late Rev. Addison Hite, a Methodist minister. Mrs. Hall died at Coffeyville in April, 1906, leaving two children: Levera May, wife of George F. Lisle, manager of a dry goods store at Chetopa, Kansas; and William Carlton, who was in the Kansas State University during 1914-15, and is now a student in the Manhattan Agricultural College. In August, 1907, at Golden, Illinois, Doctor Hall married Miss Nellie E. MacCord, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Morris F. MacCord. Her father, who died in 1913, was the oldest school teacher in Oklahoma, and had been active in that profession for fifty years. Mrs. Hall’s mother still lives at Golden, Illinois. Dr. and Mrs. Hall have a daughter, Norroena Helen, who was born January 25, 1914. During Cleveland’s second administration, Doctor Hall was a member of the board of pension examiners. Politically he is an active democrat.

Some reference should now be made to his parents and ancestors. The Halls came originally from England to New Jersey, then moved to Virginia, and still later to Ohio. His great-grandfather, George Hall, a native of New Jersey, acquired a tract of land in old Virginia along the frontier, was a participant in some of the early Indian wars, and about 1806 was accidentally killed while cleaning his gun. Doctor Hall’s grandfather, Jacob M. Hall, was born near the historic battleground of Point Pleasant in old Virginia, now West Virginia, in 1802. When he was a boy the family moved across the Ohio River into Ohio, and he became a farmer and stockman in the latter state. He lived for many years at Bell, Ohio, where Doctor Hall was born, and was still a resident there at the time of his death in 1877, though his death occurred at Dunkinsville. He was a whig and afterwards a republican. Jacob M. Hall married Polly Cochran. She was born in Washington, Kentucky, in 1800, and died at Bell, Ohio, in 1880. Her ancestor, John Cochran, was a sea captain and came from Scotland, and one of the Cochrans served as a soldier in the Revolution, being one of the direct ancestors of Doctor Hall, who is thus eligible to membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. There are two children of Jacob M. Hall and wife still living: Louisa, wife of John Frump, who was a veteran of the Civil War and now a retired farmer near Bell, Ohio; and Matilda, who resides at Bell, and first married a Mr. Frump, who died as a Union soldier in the war, and afterwards married L. G. Douglas, now deceased.

Carey F. Hall, father of Doctor Hall, was born at Bell, Ohio, in October, 1837, and died in Scioto County, Ohio, in December, 1895. He grew up in Highland County and one of his play and school mates as a boy was Hannah Milburn, who was born in Highland County in 1839. When school days were past they married, and Carey Hall then took up merchandising, was also a dealer in real estate, and in 1868 moved to Adams County, Ohio, and in 1893 to Scioto County, where he spent his last days. During the war he was a Home Guard and took part in the pursuit of Morgan during the latter’s raid through southern Indiana and southern Ohio. He was a man of fine integrity of character, was highly esteemed by his neighbors. For many years he held the office of justice of the peace and few ever had reason to appeal from his careful decisions to higher courts. He was a democrat, a member of the Methodist Church and a Mason and Odd Fellow. He and his wife, who is now living at Coffeyville, Kansas, had the following children: Dr. William C. Hall; Luella Nora, wife of John Clinton Price, a traveling salesman at Coffeyville; Laura Collier, who died at the age of eighteen; Verdie R., wife of Hardy E. Stanfield, a conductor on the interurban system and living at Coffeyville; Cary Franklin, a music dealer at Coffeyville.

Hannah Milburn, the doctor’s mother, is a daughter of Daniel Milburn, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1812, and died at Bell, Ohio, in 1894. He was reared and married in his native state, then went to Highland County, Ohio, and as an early settler cleared up a tract of land adjoining the estate where Doctor Hall’s paternal grandfather lived. Daniel Milburn was a whig and republican, and was extremely devoted during all his active years to the Methodist Church. He held all the lay offices and did much to strengthen the influence of the church in his community. Daniel Milburn married Esther A. Rice, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1814, and died near Bell, Ohio, in 1901. Their children now living are: Mrs. Hannah (Milburn) Hall, the doctor’s mother; Hester, who resides near Hillsboro, Ohio, widow of Andrew Holt, who was a veteran of the Union army; Valinda, wife of William Ream, a retired carpenter and builder near Hillsboro, Ohio; Aaron W., who occupies the old Milburn homestead in Ohio; Melissa, who is unmarried and lives with her sister Hester at Hillsboro; Angeline, wife of A. W. Lucas, a farmer and stockman near Hillsboro. Two other Milburn children are deceased, a daughter having died at the age of two years, and Martilla, after her marriage to Jacob Butler, who is also deceased. The Milburn ancestors came originally from Germany and settled in Pennsylvania in colonial times. Doctor Hall’s great-grandfather in the maternal line was Andrew Milburn, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1786, and was one of those who pioneered into the wilderness of Highland County, Ohio, where he helped clear away the timber and break up the soil. He died in that county in 1876 at the age of ninety.