Margaret Hall

Margaret McKenzie · 22 June 2015 · Hall McKenzie Cemetery Marker & Sign PRESS RELEASE

The Mercer County Historical Society has finalized plans to install an historical marker and tombstone commemorating the burial location of the Hall family, early pioneers of Princeton.

The dedication will be at 11:00 a.m. on August 21, 2009 at the intersection of Center Street and North Walker Street.

The historical marker shall read:

“Hall-McKenzie Cemetery

Benjamin Hall, Margaret McKenzie Hall, and Lavinia Hall, daughter of David & Mary Rutter Hall.

The site of this cemetery was set aside as a burial ground when David Hall sold his home Aspenwald to Charles and Harrsion Straley in 1863.

In 1778, Shawnee Indians attacked the Moredock McKenzie home in the New River Valley of Virginia, killing his wife Jemina Chapman McKenzie, three children, Henley, Sally and an infant and capturing Margaret age 10, & Elizabeth age 8. In 1794, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a treaty was signed, resulting in the release of the captives. Mordock found his daughters after 18 years of captivity and they returned to Virginia. David Hall moved to Princeton about 1840; he was a merchant and the first Princeton attorney. After selling Aspenwald, he moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where he died in 1866.

May they never be forgotten. Presented by Mercer County Historical Society 2009”

The cemetery marker will read: “Benjamin Hall 1771-1859, Margaret McKenzie Hall, 1768-, and Lavinia Hall, their granddaughter, 1850-1863”.

Descendants, members of the Hall/McKenzie family and the general public are cordially invited to the dedication. Parking will be available on the North side both sides of North Walker Street and additional parking will be available at Seaver Funeral Home on North Walker Street across from Princeton Middle School.

The Hall-McKenzie Cemetery is located behind some houses on the north side of the 200 block of Center Street in Princeton, West Virginia. When David Hall sold Aspenwold to Charles D. and Harrison W. Straley on November 4, 1863, for two thousand dollars in Confederate money, he reserved in the deed the burying ground:"where his father and mother and one daughter are already interred, and it is agreed between the parties that 2 square roods (1/2 acre) of ground including these graves are expressly reserved as a burying place for any member of said Hall's family that the surviving friends may desire to bury there." Deed Book 5 Page No. 389 and 390 Mercer County Court House.

There are three known graves in the Hall-McKenzie Cemetery: Margaret McKenzie Kinzie Hall, who died between 1837 and 1846, Benjamin Hall who died July 3, 1859 (listed in Mercer County's first 'Death Record Book', page 7), and Lavinia Hall, who died October 23, 1863.

The following is an excerpt from David Hall's Day Book G, page 50, dated Monday, October 26, 1863. David Hall was Princeton's first lawyer and a merchant. This Day Book entry was furnished by Jodelle G. McCall of Wichita Falls, Texas. Mrs. McCall is David Hall's great, great granddaughter. Other information was obtained from Lawyer James Martin (now deceased) of Bluefield. David Hall's Day Book G, began June 17, 1862 on page 50.

Margaret McKenzie

Margaret McKenzie spent about eighteen years as an Indian captive. At the beginning of her captivity in May 1778, she had reasons to fear the Indians: she and other members of her family had fled for safety several times to the Snidow Fort; on two separate occasions, the Indians had burned the cabin of her Uncle John Chapman; and she had just witnessed the massacre of her mother, brother, and three sisters.

Shortly after leaving the house with her captors, she and her sister refused to eat the bread taken from their mother's table because it had been cut with a knife that still had blood on it. An old Indian washed the knife and then cut the bread for them. On the way down the Kanawha River, they were offered boiled toad-frog soup but they could not stomach that Indian delicacy.

Eventually Margaret adopted the ways of the Indians and learned the language of the Shawnees and later that of the Delawares. Adopted by Chief Coothumpum of the Delawares, she grew up in his household and was treated with great kindness, especially by her foster brother and sister.

A Shawnee chief fell in love with her but she rejected his proposal of marriage. One night she fled seventy miles to the home of her foster sister for protection. The chief followed and would have killed her had not the foster sister intervened. In the fight, the foster sister broke the knife blade and gave the chief a good thrashing. Humiliated, he left and was later killed in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. While she was with the Delawares, she married John Kenzie (December 23, 1763 - January 6 1828), the son of John McKenzie and Anne Haliburton. His father John McKenzie had come to Canada as a surgeon with the British army. John, who changed his name to Kenzie by dropping the Mc, was a fur trader and a silversmith. Margaret and John Kenzie had three children: William, James, and Elizabeth.

Her father Mordock McKenzie found her on his second trip north and had to persuade her to come back to the New River Valley settlement. Sometime after her return, she married Benjamin Hall (c 1781 - 1859), the son of David and Sarah Rollins Hall. Benjamin and Margaret had two children: David and Sarah. Margaret's first husband, John Kinzie, settled at the mouth of the Chicago River with his second wife Eleanor Little McKillip in 1804.

Benjamin and Margaret were members of the Walker's Creek Branch of the Meadow Creek Baptist Church which belonged to the New River District Association. However, at a meeting on August 7, 1819, in the home of Mrs. Clibourn, Benjamin and Margaret Hall and tow brothers joined Landon Duncan in separating themselves from the Baptist and organizing a Christian Church. Church services were held alternately between Benjamin Hall's on Walker's Creek and James French's on Wolf Creek.

In the 1830's Margaret and Benjamin Hall lived about four miles from Gray Sulphur Springs, near the line dividing the counties of Monroe and Giles. Sometime in the early 1840's, they moved to Princeton in Mercer County to be with their son David, who was practising law and operating a store in the newly created county seat.

The exact date of Margaret's death is not known. Since she is not listed in the 1850 Census, it is thought that she died in the late 1840's During the last twelve years of her life, she was totally blind. In a letter to his daughter Elizabeth "Lizzie", David wrote of his mother: "Of my mother, it may truly be said that she was a child of sorrow and affliction." The 1850 Census listed Benjamin's occupation as postmaster; his real estate was valued at three hundred dollars. He died on July 3, 1859. Margaret and Benjamin were buried in the Hall Cemetery located north of Center Street in Princeton.

William Kinzie, Margaret and John Kinzie's oldest son, was born about 1791. He came with his mother to the New River settlement about 1797. He married in Giles County but went to be with his father in Chicago and later moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where he lived on the land that belonged to his half=brother David Hall. A daughter Mrs. Barnhous lived near him. One of his daughters married Thomas Clyborun. William spent the last years of his life with his son James in 'Negraska and died there in 1869.

James Kinzie, was born April 21, 1793, and died in 1866 in Wisconsin. He lived in Giles County with his mother but, upon reaching maturity, went to Chicago in search of his father. After returning to Virginia for a brief period, James moved to Chicago to be near his father. His father became the agent for the American Fur Company in 1825. James was the first sheriff of Cook County, Illinois. He married Leah See (Leah Lee McIntire?) in 1830. His second marriage was to Virginia Hale, the dauther of Isaiah and Margaret Lucas Hale oif Giles County, Virginia. He had four children: Margaret, Robert, Mary, and Frances. James often visited his half-brother David Hall in Princeton.

Elizabeth Kinzie was born about 1795 and died in 1832. She went to Chicago about 1823. On August 25, 1825, she married Samuel Miller, who was in the tanning and curing business. The ceremony was performed by her father John Kinzie, who had been appointed Justice of the Peace for Peoria County in January 1825. At her death, her husband took their children to his father's home in Laporte, Indiana. David Hall, the son of Benjamin and Margaret Hall, was born about 1803 on Walker's Creek in Giles County. According to David's first cousin Benjamin Hall, David spent some time in Chicago as a clerk for the American Fur Company. He also bought land in Elkhart, Indiana. By 1828, David was operating a store in Giles County. He taught school and studied law. On November 28, 1836, he was admitted to the bar in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He married Mary Elizabeth Rutter, the daughter of Dr. John Harrison Rutter and Lavinia Kane Rutter, on October 11, 1837, in Giles County.

Around 1840, David moved to Princeton. He opened a store which was later known as Hall & Schmitz. He built a spacious frame home named Aspenwold on a site across from the present Seaver Funeral Home on North Walker Street. It was one of the few houses that escaped destruction when Colonel Jennifer ordered Princeton burned in May 1862. About 1907, the house was moved to 1603 Main Street, and in the early 1970's it was torn down to make room for a parking lot.

David was probably the first resident lawyer in Princeton. It has been noted that his one-room law office was the first to have been erected in West Virginia south of the Kanawah River. During the War Between the States, the office was used as the Confederate Post Office and at the end of the War, Confederate soldiers subscribed to the oath of allegiance to the United States in this building.

The Hall Family Cemetery is located behind some houses on Center Street in Princeton. When David sold Aspenwold to Charled D. aand Harison W. Straley on November 4, 1863, for two thousand five hundred dollars in Confederate money, he reserved in the deed the burying ground "where his father and mother & one daughter are already interred, and it is agreed between the parties that two square roods of ground including these graves are expressly reserved as a burying place for any member of said Hall's family that the surviving friends may desire to bury there."

According to the 1850 Census, David owned two slaves, and his real estate was valued a t eleven thousand dollars. The Census listas the following children: John B. (b. 838- ), Sarah Elizabeth (b. 1841 - ), Ellen V. (1843 - ), Caroline M. (1845 - ), William H. (1847 - ), and James R. (1849 - ). A daughter Lavinia was born later. Sarah Elizabeth married J. H. Torbett; Ellen V. married Crockett McDonald, the son of Stephen McDonald.

After selling Aspenwold in 1863, David and his family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where he died in September 1866.

Sarah R. Hall, the daughter of Benjamin and Margaret Hall, married George Lybrook on December 30, 1823. After his death, she married Isaiah Hale, son of Edward and Patsy Perdue Hale. They had two daughters: Lizzie, who married George Spangler, and Sallie L., who married J. Harvey Dunn, and one son: Luther C. Hale.

Elizabeth McKenzie

Elizabeth McKenzie remained with the Shawnee Indians until 1796, when her father found her and brought her back to the New River settlement. During her captivity, she married a Scotsman by the name of Clarke by whom she had two children: John E. (K.?) and Sarah Elizabeth.

After returning to Walker's Creek, she married Jonas Clibourn (Clyborun, Clabourn, Clyborn) by whom she had two sons: Archibald and Henley.

On April 2, 1816, Elizabeth granted permission for her daughter Sarah Elizabeth "Sally" Clarke to marry William Aheart (Eahart, Ahart). After their marriage, they settled in Laporte, Indiana. Elizabeth's son John E. Clarke and his first cousin James Kinzie, after reaching maturity, went to Chicago in search of their fathers. Upon their brief return to Virginia, about 1823, they persuaded Elizabeth and Jonas Clibourn to move to Chicago. Elizabeth and Jonas later moved to Indiana, where James died on July 24, 1842.

Archibald Clibourn was born on August 28, 1802, and died on August 23, 1872. Henley Clibourn was born on August 5, 1804. He first married Sarah Benedict and later Eliza Concannon Sherry. Both Archibald and Henley went with their parents to Chicago.