| Notes |
- William Eustis Hall is the second and youngest son of James Hall and Silence Parker. His middle name of Eustis may be from one of the early governors of the State of Maine whom his father, it is said, held in high regard. I think there is a town in Maine called Eustis, and this name is a lead that should be followed regarding the origins of James Hall.
He apparently took up the carpenters trade along with his father, and according to William Edgar Hall's oral history of the family, he may have been present on the job site when his father James died.
He is said to have left Shrewsbury after his father's death in 1841, and first worked in Worcester then he went to Connecticut. It was from here that he got the idea from an associate to move to the Chicago area for work and opportunity. He apparently found both in abundance. Working first on the detailed woodwork on the interior of railroad passenger cars and later opening his own sash and blind business he seems to have amassed a sizeable fortune.
During the Civil War he paid one of his workers $500 to serve in his stead which was a commonly accepted practice of the time. William Edgar Hall related that the employee was killed in one of the early engagements of the war.
The family lived in Englewood, Illinois, a section of Chicago until they returned to Worcester, Mass. in embarrassment, it is said, from the divorce of their son Albert Eustis from his first wife Elizabeth Sarah Behrs.
William Edgar Hall noted that his parents fought or did not get along well. Story has it that William Eustis and his wife encouraged Elizabeth to "go away" or leave her husband which she eventually did. Also William Eustis is the one that was supposed to have negotiated and paid for the removal of William Edgar from his mother so that he might return to Worcester and be raised by Hall family. A sum of $600 dollars was involved in the transfer on the train, a move that would result in William Edgar never seeing his birth mother again.
Upon removing himself to Worcester, William Eustis apparently lived the life of a gentleman farmer with a property at 98 Woodland Street on what is now the grounds of Clark University. His house was for a time the faculty house until it was torn down. The date of sale of the house to Clark University was about 1920. It was demolished and a dormitory stands there now. William Edgar relates wrestling pigs at the place and that grandfather had buggies and a surrey with a fringe for traveling. His obituary indicates that he was not much of a joiner of clubs or organizations but did belong to the Pilgrim Church in Worcester.
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1824 - 1907 (83 years)
