Background
John Elihu Hall was born on December 27, 1783, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of John and Sarah (Ewing) Hall, and a brother of James Hall. His father came of a Maryland family descended from Richard Hall who took land rights in Maryland in August 1663 and was elected to the provincial Assembly in 1665. His mother was a daughter of John Ewing, provost of the University of Pennsylvania; and his wife, Fanny M. Chew, was a member of another notable Philadelphia family.
Education
John Hall studied at Princeton but did not graduate, read law in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1805.
Career
In 1808 in Baltimore, John Hall began the publication of the American Law Journal. He also published The Practice and Jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty (1809); An Essay on Maritime Loans, from the French of Balthasard Marie Emcrigon with Notes, to Which is Added an Appendix (1811); Tracts on Constitutional Law, Containing Mr. Livingston’s Answer to Mr. Jefferson (1813), a discussion of the New Orleans batture case; and Office and Authority of a Justice of the Peace in the State of Maryland; to Which is added a Variety of Precedents in Conveyancing (1815).
In 1812 July 27-29, Hall shared in defending Alexander C. Hanson, Jr. , publisher of the Federal Republican, against an anti-British mob in Baltimore, from which he deemed it fortunate to escape with his life. A little later, in Philadelphia, he published an anonymous pamphlet on the riot, To the People of the United States. Meanwhile he had been adventuring in literature. It is said that he had collected and arranged an edition of William Wirt’s Letters of the British Spy, to which he contributed several letters which won the approval of the author.
He had met Tom Moore in Philadelphia in 1804, when Moore’s translation of Anacreon was in press in that city, and he corresponded with him for years thereafter. In March 1806 he contributed to the Port Folio the “Original Biography of Anacreon, ” and in 1810 he prefixed to an edition of Poems by the Late Dr. Shaw a life of the author with extracts from his diaries.
In 1813 Hall was appointed to a professorship in the University of Maryland, an appointment that ranked him as, prima facie, one of the seven most eminent scholars of the city.
About this time, led apparently by his mother’s literary example and his acquaintance with the poet Moore, Hall turned definitely from a promising legal career to one of less distinction in letters. In 1816 he moved to Philadelphia to become editor of the Port Folio, founded by Joseph Dennie, of which his brother, Harrison Hall, had just become the publisher. The avowed purpose of the new editor was “to vindicate the character of American literature and manners from the aspersions of ignorant and illiterate foreigners”. With contributions from himself, from his mother, and from two other brothers, James and Thomas Mifflin Hall, the magazine became almost a family enterprise. Its brilliance had faded since Dennie’s death, however; it continued to decline, and after two suspensions was finally discontinued in December 1827. During these years Hall brought out a few works in the legal field, including Tracts on the Constitutional Law of the United States Selected from the Law Journal (1817) and Digested Index to the Term Reports, from 1785 to 1818.
He made an attempt to revive his able legal journal in the Journal of Jurisprudence, and published three literary volumes: The Lay Preacher by Joseph Dennie, Collected and Arranged by John E. Hall (1817); The Philadelphia Souvenir: a Collection of Fugitive Pieces from the Philadelphia Press (1826), with biographical and explanatory notes, and original contributions by the editor; and Memoirs of Eminent Persons, with Portraits and Facsimiles (1827). After two years of failing health, he died in 1829, at Philadelphia.
Politics
In politics John Elihu Hall was an intense Federalist, and opposed to war in 1812.
Membership
John Hall was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Personality
Hall's command of languages, ancient and modern, was unusual.
