HALL, JAMES HUGH BLAIR, teacher and Presbyterian minister, was born September 22, 1855, at Hall's Ferry, on the Tennessee River, seven miles east of Madisonville, Monroe County, Tenn.; son of Sylvester Young and Alazannah (Blair) Hall of Tennessee; grandson of James Wiley and Ruth Margaret (Parks) Hall, and of Rev. James and Jane Gamble (Blair) Blair, great-grandson of James and Margaret (Wiley) Hall and of William and Sallie (Simmons) Blair; great-great-grandson of John Blair and of Thomas Rogers, who fought side by side at King's Mountain. The Halls came from Ireland and the Blairs were of Scotch origin. James Hugh Blair Hall passed his boyhood days on his father's farm and received his early education in the old field schools of the neighborhood. He entered Hiwassee college, near Madisonville, in 1869, where he studied until 1872. In that fall he entered the Loudon high school, conducted under the patronage of the Cumberland Presbyterian church; in 1876 he entered the Cumberland Presbyterian university, Lebanon, Tenn., from which he received the A. B. degree, June, 1878; began teaching in Helena collegiate institute, Helena, upon graduation, and has spent, with the exception of three years, the remainder of his life teaching, having had in these years more than two thousand students to pass under his influence. He has taught in addition to the school at Helena, at Highland, Shelby County, Springville, St. Clair County; Pleasant Hill academy, Dallas county; and the Zelosophian academy, Jefferson County. He was pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, Winchester, Tenn., and at Gadsden; was synodical evangelist of the Alabama synod, Cumberland Presbyterian church, for one year, and is now an ordained minister of the Presbyterian church of the United States of America and is the recognized historian of his church in Alabama. He has in manuscript form a large collection of original writings on family, local and church history, and a number of sermons. He is a Democrat; and a Prohibitionist. Married; July 23, 1882, at Montevallo, to Emma Cilicia, daughter of the Rev. William Carroll and Corinne (Carleton) Gardner of that place. Children: 1. Hugh Talmage, m. Myrtice A. Bristow, of Calera, lives in Birmingham; 2. Mignon Myra; 3. Ruskin. Residence: Brent.
[Source: History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography. By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie (Bankhead) Owen. Published by the S. J. Clarke publishing company, 1921, pages 727-728]