Angeline S. Hall.
On the 3rd of May Mr. Hall wrote to his wife from Washington:
Dearest Angie: Yesterday afternoon Capt. Gillis told me to tell you that the best answer he could make to your letter is that hereafter you might address me as Prof. A. Hall....
You wrote to Capt. Gillis, did you? What did you write?
Yours,
A. Hall.
And so it was that Asaph Hall entered permanently into the service of the United States Government. His position in life was at last secure, and the rest of his days were devoted completely to science. His wife, grown stronger and more self-reliant, took charge of the family affairs and left him free to work. That summer he wrote to her, “It took me a long time to find out what a good wife I have got.”
Some fifteen years afterward Mrs. Hall rendered a similar service to the famous theoretical astronomer, Mr. George W. Hill, who for several years was an inmate of her house. Knowing Mr. Hill’s rare abilities, and his extreme modesty, Mrs. Hall took it upon herself to urge his appointment to the corps of Professors of Mathematics, U.S. Navy, to which her husband belonged. There were two vacancies at the time, and Mr. Hill, having brilliantly passed a competitive examination, was designated for appointment. But certain influences deprived the corps of the lustre which the name of Hill would have shed upon it.
In the fall of 1863 the Halls settled down again in the house on I Street. Here the busy little wife made home as cheerful as the times permitted, celebrating her husband’s birthday with a feast. But the I Street home was again invaded by small-pox. Captain Fox, having been appointed to a government clerkship, was boarding with them, when he came down with varioloid. And Mr. Hall’s sister, on a visit to Washington, caught the small-pox from him. However, she recovered without spreading the disease.
In May, 1864, they rented rooms in a house on the heights north of the city. Their landlord, a Mr. Crandle, was a Southern sympathizer; but when General Jubal A. Early threatened the city he was greatly alarmed. On the morning of July 12 firing was heard north of the city. Crandle, with a clergyman friend, had been out very early reconnoitering, and they appeared with two young turkeys, stolen somewhere in anticipation of the sacking of the city. For the Confederates were coming, and the house, owned as it was by a United States officer, would surely be burned. A hiding place for the family had been found in the Rock Creek valley.