Samuel Hall (1821-1901)Samuel Hall (1821-1901)Samuel, son of William Hall and Lydia French, was born 6 April 1821 in Checkley, Staffordshire, England. He married Catherine Foden at Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England on 27 September 1847.
In Liverpool on 30 June 1868, Samuel Hall boarded the British steamship Minnesota headed for a new life in America. With him were his wife, Catherine, his twenty-one year old daughter, Keziah, and his four-year-old son, Samuel Richard. They carried only memories of seven other children who had died at early ages. Seventeen years earlier, the Halls had become converts to the LDS Church. Catherine was baptized 6 March 1851 and Samuel followed a month later on April 8. Those years in England were undoubtedly filled with heartache as they lost one child after another.
While there is no known personal account of Samuel and Catherine's journey to America and Utah, some of the other people in the same party recorded many details. The 12-day voyage from Liverpool to New York was described by leaders as pleasant and comfortable. Of the 1100 passengers aboard the ship, 534 were LDS members under the leadership of John Parry. They stayed in bunks on a lower level, but were allowed to go to the upper middle deck where they could get fresh air. The captain treated them with kindness and allowed them to hold meetings. On the 4th of July, those on the ship celebrated by singing, playing fiddles and shooting cannons into the water. However, the conditions became very difficult as the journey progressed.
There was a considerable amount of seasickness and illness and some passengers described the food as coarse and poorly served. As the summer heat increased, some suffered from sunstroke. The ship arrived in New York on a Sunday with the immigration office closed. The passengers were forced to stay on the hot ship until Monday when they could be processed at Castle Garden. After having their luggage searched and money exchanged, they were transferred to trains. Some people were loaded on boxcars and others on cattle cars where many had to stand. During the difficult 10-day train ride, a number of deaths resulted from the heat and scarcity of water. When they arrived at Laramie, the group was met by mule teams and wagons from Salt Lake. They finished the rest of the journey with 10 to 12 people crowded into each wagon. As part of the Chester Loveland Company, they arrived in Salt Lake in August of 1868.
Samuel and Catherine stayed in Utah for a short time where a son, William, was born. He died at age four. It is uncertain when the Halls went to Bennington, Idaho, where they settled. Samuel and Catherine were endowed in Salt Lake on 13 October 1873. Five years later, Samuel was sealed to Rosina Wäffler, a 34-year-old convert from Switzerland. The 1880 Census listed Samuel and Catherine living in Bennington with their 14-year-old son, Samuel R. It listed Rosina in Montpelier with her infant daughter, Mary Ann.
Over the next ten years, four other children were born to Rosina. It was a difficult time for polygamous families. The Idaho legislature had taken the right of citizenship away from church members. They were trying to convict any man that provided any type of support to a second family. Not long after church President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto, Catherine died. To make sure their marriage was legal and binding in the eyes of the law, Samuel and Rosina were remarried in a civil ceremony in Montpelier on November 24, 1890.
According to the 1900 Census, Samuel, Rosina, and three children were living in Bennington where their home and farm were free of mortgage. Samuel died on 1 October 1901 at age eighty. --Colleen Helquist
Rosina, daughter of Jacob Wäffler and Susanna Teuscher, was born on 11 October 1844 in the village of Diemtigen, Bern, Switzerland. Little is known of her early life, but her family had lived in Diemtigen for many generations and she had many relatives there. Some of those relatives, belonging to the Kunz family, began joining the LDS Church in 1862. Many were Simmentahl cheesemakers. In the 1870's some members of the Kunz family came to the United States and settled in Bern,Idaho near Montpelier.
According to the Bennington Ward records, Rosina was baptized 9 June 1874 by her distant cousin John Kunz. A year later, she joined other members of the Simmenthal Branch in coming to America. She was thirty years old and single. Rosina came to the US on the Wisconsin, a British steamship. They left Liverpool on 16 June 1875 and arrived in New York eleven days later. On board were 167 LDS passengers under the leadership of Robert T. Burton. According to Burton, the trip went smoothly with only a moderate amount of seasickness. On June 28, they arrived in New York and were processed at Castle Garden. From there they traveled across the country by railroad, arriving in Salt Lake on July 8.
Since many of her Swiss friends and relatives had settled near Montpelier, Idaho, that was the natural place for Rosina to go. Three years after her arrival, she became a plural wife to Samuel Hall of Bennington. She was thirty-four and he was fifty-seven. During the next twelve years, Rosina lived in Bennington and on a farm near Montpelier. She bore five children, one of which died at birth.
In October of 1890, a Manifesto was issued by the church, ending polygamy. Samuel's first wife, Catherine, died a month later. In order to make sure their marriage was valid, Samuel and Rosina were married again in a civil ceremony on 24 November 1890 in Montpelier.
Rosina cared for Samuel until his death in 1901. He was eighty years old, but she was left a widow at the young age of fifty-seven. In 1906, she moved back to the farm near Montpelier with her three unmarried children. Her son, Joe, never married and spent his life looking after his mother and running the farm. Rosina's grandchildren used to visit her on the farm in the summer. Her grandson described his Grandma Rosie as a kind but determined little lady who spoke with a strong German accent and worked very hard.
In her biography of Bishop Amos Wright of Bennington, Geneva E. Wright described the following incident that took place at his death in 1915. "Amos had left strict instructions that his funeral was to be as simple as possible. He didn't want a lot of expense. He especially said, 'no flowers.' Rosy Hall, a little German woman, laid a tiny bouquet of red geraniums on the coffin in defiance of his wish." Rosina passed away eight years later on 3 January 1924.--Colleen Helquist
See history of Brigham Young Pugmire and Mary Ann Hall