In 1877 he succeeded Gov. Harriman as naval officer at the port of Boston. This office is co-ordinate with that of collector, upon which it is a check. Mr. Hall's business habits, his keen insight, his perfect accuracy, and the ruling principle of his life to do everything well and thoroughly, there came into operation. He quietly mastered the details as well as the general work of the department. Regularly at his post, his office became a model in its management, and was commended in the highest terms by the proper officers. When, therefore, his term expired, he was re-appointed for another four years, by President Arthur, with no serious opposition.
Mr. Hall married, January 25, 1877, Sophia, daughter of Jonathan T. and Sarah (Hanson) Dodge, of Rochester, and has one son, Arthur Wellesley Hall, born August 30, 1878. The beautiful house erected and occupied by him in Dover, and adorned with cultivated taste, has not its least charm in the steadily increasing library of carefully selected literature, to whose study he devotes the hours not required by official duties.
He attends the First church of Dover, the Congregational church, where his emigrant ancestor held office two centuries and a quarter ago. He is a radical teetotaler, and deeply interested in the cause of temperance. It is his personal request to have his great love for the horse, and, indeed, for all animals, spoken of in this sketch.
Mr. Hall's gentle, courteous, and unassuming manners do not meet the common idea of the bold and sagacious politician. His modest conversation will suggest scholarly instincts, but requires time to show the breadth of his culture. Public addresses have, as occasions demanded, exhibited the thoughtful political student, a patriotic love of country, and the ripeness of the accomplished scholar. Fidelity to every engagement, good faith to every principle espoused, firmness in determination, and usefulness in every work undertaken, have insured him success. But in a life still so young, it is fair to assume that recognitions of public respect will be greater than any trusts yet given, or reputation achieved, in his profession, the field of long past battles, or the offices of public honor.
D. H. Goodell
HON. DAVID H. GOODELL.
Olive Atwood Wright was one of a large family of children. Her parents, who lived in Sullivan, were very poor and found it difficult to provide for the many who were dependent upon them, and when Olive was fifteen years of age she left home and started for Boston in search of an opportunity to earn her own living. On arriving in that city she had just fifty cents, and finding no employment there she proceeded to Waltham, where the first cotton-factory in the country had just commenced operations. Here she found some old acquaintances; but they refused to recognize her on account of her poverty. She, however, obtained the privilege of working in the factory, and at the end of a year visited her parents with eighty times as much money in her pocket as she had when the stage left her in Boston. Eight years later she had saved from her earnings five hundred dollars, and having married a young farmer, Jesse R. Goodell, went to live with him upon the homestead which had belonged to his ancestors, in Hillsborough. This couple were the parents of David H. Goodell, who was an only child, and was born May 6, 1834. The family remained upon the Hillsborough farm until 1841, when it was sold and they removed to another in the adjoining town of Antrim.