Dr. William Brenton HALL

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Name:
He was born in Wallingford, May 31, 1764, graduated at Yale College in 1786, and studied medicine, probably in New Haven. He is said to have enjoyed special advantages for the times from medical lectures which he attended, which must have been either the private lectures of Dr. Romayne in New York or those delivered in Philadelphia, where were the only two medical colleges at that day in the country. He commenced practice in Wallingford, and in 1790 removed to Middletown. In 1792 he asked permission of his native town to establish a "Pock-House", as it was then called, on his father's farm, which was in the northeast part of Meriden near the Middletown line. In the Wallingford records we find the following entry respecting his application:

"At a town meeting held at Wallingford, December 18, 1792, the petition of William B. Hall, Physician and Surgeon, was presented, 'praying liberty to erect an hospital on his father's farm, quite remote from the publick road or dwelling house, for the purpose of inoculation for the small pox, or to inoculate at any other place which he should think most proper under the immediate inspection and direction of the Civil Authority and selectmen of said Town, on condition said Hall be under bonds to pay all expenses that the town or any of its Inhabitants may be put to in case the infection should spread through his carelessness or neglect, and in every such case to pay in to the Town Treas'y Forty shillings or any other sum that should be desired."

This petition was granted by the town. These houses were usually very profitable, and Dr. Hall's enterprise proved so successful that in 1793 Aaron Andrews, Ensign Hough and Bilious Kirtland, "all of said Wallingford, Physicians and Surgeons," also obtained permission "to inoculate in such house or houses as should be judged safe, convenient and proper."

William married Mehetable PARSONS on 6 Mar 1796 in Middletown, Connecticut. Mehetable (daughter of Major-Gen. Samuel Holden PARSONS and Mehetable MATHER) was born on 24 Dec 1772 in Lyme, Connecticut; died on 1 Nov 1828. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Samuel Holden Parsons HALL was born on 23 Jun 1804 in Middletown, Connecticut; died on 5 Mar 1877.

Brenton married Lament COLLINS on 18 Feb 1762. Lament was born on 4 Jul 1745; died on 30 Nov 1782. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Daughter of Captain Jonathan Collins and Agnes Linn