Willard Hall was an American jurist and politician. He served as judge of the United States District Court of Delaware from 1823 to 1871.
Background
Willard Hall was born on December 24, 1780, in Westford, Massachusetts, United States, of an ancestry of deacons and ministers. His father was Willis Hall, a descendant of Stephen Hall who was living in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1653; his mother, Mehetable (Poole) Hall of Hollis, New Hampshire. To her he attributed the moulding of his character during the formative years.
Education
After three years in the academy at Westford, Willard Hall entered Harvard College in 1795, graduating four years later with honors. His law reading was completed under Samuel Dana of Groton, Massachusetts, and in March 1803, he was admitted to the bar in Hillsboro, New Hampshire.
Career
Dissatisfaction with the crowded condition of his profession in New England caused Hall to remove to Delaware in April 1803. Carrying letters of introduction from Harrison Gray Otis to James A. Bayard and Caesar Rodney, he had no difficulty in being admitted to the Delaware bar. Hall made his home in Dover. From 1812 to 1814 he served as secretary of state and in 1816 he was elected on the Republican ticket to Congress, serving two terms as representative, from March 1817 to March 1821. After another term in 1821 as secretary of state, he was elected to the Delaware Senate, taking his seat in January 1823. On May 6 of the same year he was appointed, chiefly on Caesar Rodney’s recommendation, judge of the United States district court of Delaware, in which capacity he served until December 6, 1871, when he retired.
Hall had little taste for legislative duties, and it was in this later period that his life work was accomplished. During his more than forty-eight years on the bench only one of his decisions, that of United States vs. Commandant of Fort Delaware (1866) was seriously questioned, and the principles governing his decision in this case were similar to those governing that of the United States Supreme Court in the famous ex parte Milligan case, decided the same year. Ample leisure from judicial duties afforded him opportunities to give the state his most valuable services. On authorization by the legislature in 1824, Hall revised the laws of Delaware, completing the task in 1829. He was elected on the ticket of both parties as a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1831, where he was the foremost antagonist of John M. Clayton on the issues before that body.
Hall best deserves recognition, however, as a founder and a tireless advocate of public-school education in Delaware. In 1836 he organized the New Castle County School Convention, and through this medium kept the subject constantly before the people. From 1852, when it was organized, to 1870, he was president of the Delaware School Board. The value of his services can hardly be over-estimated, yet his democratic ideas, carried out with relentless logic - such as the decentralization provided for in the law of 1829 - were responsible also for retarding influences which brought him into conflict with a progressive group. He was also opposed to a state normal school. After his resignation as judge in his ninety-first year he ceased to take an active part in affairs. He died about four years later at Wilmington, to which place he had removed in 1825.
Achievements
Membership
Hall was member of the Delaware Historical Society.
Personality
Hall had preeminently the conservative, judicial mind which sought to preserve the sanctity of the common law, but his strict sense of justice operated evenly and without prejudice.
Connections
In 1806 Willard Hall married Junia Killen, daughter of the former chancellor of Delaware. She died within a few years, and in 1829 he married Harriet Hilliard. His only child, Lucinda, was born of the first marriage.