Draft:Joseph L. Hall
19th Century American Manufacturer
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Joseph Lloyd Hall (May 9, 1823 – March 10, 1889) was an American manufacturer and inventor. He founded both the Hall's Safe & Lock Company and the Consolidated Time Lock Company. He built Hall's Safe & Lock Company into the largest safe and vault manufacturer in the world.[1] From Cincinnati, Ohio, his company at its peak employed more than 1,300 workers, supplied an estimated half of all fireproof and burglar-proof safes sold in the United States, and held government contracts from the U.S. Army, U.S. Mint, and state and county capitols across the country.[2] Hall held approximately thirty patents relating to fireproof safe construction, combination lock mechanisms, and time locks and his company's products appeared in the vaults of the nation's largest banks, express companies, and government buildings.[3]
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May 9, 1823
Joseph L. Hall | |
|---|---|
 Joseph L. Hall, photographed by Landy Photo, Cincinnati, c. 1870s–1880s | |
| Born | Joseph Lloyd Hall May 9, 1823 Salem, Salem County, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | March 10, 1889 (aged 65) Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Heart failure |
| Resting place | Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Occupations | Manufacturer, inventor, businessman |
| Known for | Founder and president of Hall's Safe & Lock Co., Founder The Consolidated Time Lock Company |
| Spouse | Sarah Jane Jewell (m. c.1848) |
| Children | 12 (including Edward Clark Hall, William Harry Hall) |
| Parent(s) | Edward H. Hall (father); Anna Lloyd Hall (mother) |
Hall began his career working with his father, Edward H. Hall, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania around 1846, and relocated the business to Cincinnati by 1850. Over four decades, he transformed a small craft workshop into a nationally known industrial enterprise. Three U.S. Supreme Court cases involved his company's patents and trade name, including Hall v. MacNeale, 107 U.S. 90 (1883), and Sargent v. Hall Safe & Lock Co., 114 U.S. 63 (1885).
He died suddenly in March 1889, at sixty-five, and was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.[4] His sons continued the company until its voluntary consolidation into the Herring-Hall-Marvin Company in 1892, three years after his death.
Career
Patents and technical innovations
Hall was described in 1877 as "patentee of some thirty well-known and valuable inventions in bank locks and safes."[5] His most significant patents included:
- U.S. Patent No. 6,655 (August 21, 1849, with Edward H. Hall) — fireproof safe construction using hydraulic cement between iron casings[6]
- U.S. Patent No. 80,728 (August 4, 1868) — an improved fireproof safe design adding glass jars filled with water and L-shaped angle-irons[7]
- U.S. Patent No. 211,995 (February 4, 1879) — time-controlled spindle locking, the earliest-filed Hall time-lock patent[8]
- U.S. Patent Nos. 212,610; 213,566; 214,034; 214,045; 214,781 (all 1879) — a cluster of time-lock patents, some co-invented with William Kook[9]
The patents on safe door construction — particularly the conical bolt design and the "tenon-and-groove" joint that prevented the introduction of wedges or nitro-glycerine between safe door and jamb — were at the center of the major patent litigation of the 1870s–1880s.
Patent litigation
In the 1870s, Hall brought patent infringement suits against MacNeal & Urban Safe and Lock Co. and Mosler, Bahmann & Co., both of Cincinnati, for infringing his safe-construction patents. After four years of proceedings involving 1,500 pages of testimony, both bills were dismissed by the circuit court in February 1879; Hall appealed to the Supreme Court.[10] In Hall v. MacNeale, 107 U.S. 90 (1883), the Supreme Court ruled Hall's conical bolt patent (No. 67,046) invalid on the grounds that Hall had commercially sold safes incorporating the same feature more than two years before the patent application, barring it under then-applicable law.
In the defensive litigation, Sargent & Greenleaf sued Hall for infringing its time-lock patent. In Sargent v. Hall Safe & Lock Co., 114 U.S. 63 (1885), the Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of Sargent's bill, finding no infringement: Hall's time-lock mechanism used a sliding bolt, while Sargent's patent required a revolving bolt. Hall's time-lock product line was thereby protected.
A separate Patent Office interference in 1876 over time-lock priority involved former Senator Roscoe Conkling as counsel for Sargent & Greenleaf; Hall's representatives alleged corrupt dealing when the Commissioner of Patents — Conkling's own appointee — decided in Sargent's favor.[11]
Personal life
Hall married Sarah Jane Jewell (1830–1893). The couple had twelve children, of whom eleven survived to adulthood: Anna Margaret Hall (Mrs. Richard T. Pullen), Edward Clark Hall, Kate Louise Hall (Mrs. John B. Hart), William Harry Hall, Charles O. Hall, Joseph Lloyd Hall Jr. (died 1879, age approximately 27), Albert Acton Hall, Walker Pierce Hall, Sarah Sallie Hall, Pearl Hall, Chloe Hall, and Jessie L. Hall.[12]
Hall was a devoted member of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church. He also served as a trustee of the Cincinnati Camp-meeting Association.[13] He was a member of Hauselman Commandery, Knights Templar (York Rite Freemasonry), having received the Order of Malta in September 1881.[14] In civic life, he served as a director of the Cincinnati National Bank, was a delegate to the National Pacific Railroad Convention in 1875.[15]
Death
Joseph L. Hall died on the morning of Sunday, March 10, 1889, at his Walnut Hills home. While dressing for Sunday services at St. Paul's Church, he experienced chest pain, was assisted to bed, and died before physicians could arrive. The cause was described as "paralysis of the heart".[16]
His funeral was held on Wednesday, March 13, 1889, at St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, Seventh and Smith Streets, Cincinnati. The officiating pastor was the Reverend Washington Gardner — who would later serve as a U.S. Congressman (R–Michigan, 1899–1911), Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, and Commissioner of Pensions — assisted by the Reverend J.J. Reed and Dr. Van Cleve. Eight hundred employees of Hall's Safe and Lock Company marched in the procession, preceded by a band; the Knights Templar followed with their own band; and more than 100 carriages accompanied the cortège. The floral tribute from the employees bore a ribbon reading "Life's labor well done." Nearly 100 carriages followed the remains from the church to Spring Grove Cemetery, where Hall was interred.[17]
Legacy
Hall's sons continued the company after his death. Under Edward Clark Hall's presidency, Hall's Safe & Lock Company merged into the Herring-Hall-Marvin Company on June 1, 1892.
Hall is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Notable descendants
Hall's granddaughter through his son Joseph Lloyd Hall Jr. was Katherine E. Hall (1909–1993), whose daughter is actress Katharine Ross (born 1940), best known for The Graduate (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Stepford Wives (1975). Ross married actor Sam Elliott in 1984.
Captain Joseph Hall Hart Jr. (1905–1947), Hall's great-grandson via his daughter Kate Louise Hall and her husband John B. Hart, was the pilot of Pan American World Airways Flight 121 ("Clipper Eclipse") when it crash-landed near Al Mayadin, Syria, on June 19, 1947. Hart was among fifteen killed. A surviving crew member on the flight was Eugene Wesley Roddenberry (1921–1991), then a Pan American Third Officer, who later created Star Trek. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation commended Roddenberry and the other surviving crew for their conduct.[18]
The superintendent of Hall's Safe & Lock Company for 56 years was William E. Chesterton (1844–1932), a cousin of the English author G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936).[19]
See also
- Hall's Safe & Lock Co.
- Herring-Hall-Marvin Company
- Hall v. MacNeale, 107 U.S. 90 (1883)
- Sargent v. Hall Safe & Lock Co., 114 U.S. 63 (1885)
- Herring-Hall-Marvin Co. v. Hall's Safe Co., 208 U.S. 554 (1908)
- Spring Grove Cemetery
- Edward Clark Hall
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