Willard Preble Hall

William Willard Preble Hall (May 9, 1820ndash November 2, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as the second unelected "provisional governor" of Missouri from 1864 to 1865 during last years of the American Civil War.

Early years

Hall was born in Harpers Ferry, then in Virginia. He attended a private school in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from Yale University in 1839.

He accompanied his father to Randolph County, Missouri, in 1840. He studied law and was admitted to the bar at Huntsville in 1841, commencing his law practice in Sparta in 1842. He was appointed circuit attorney in 1843 and served for several years. He was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1844.

During the Mexican-American War, Hall enlisted as a private in the First Missouri Cavalry Regiment and later was promoted to lieutenant. He was appointed by General Kearny, together with Col. Alexander Doniphan, to construct the code of civil laws known as the Kearny code in both English and Spanish for the territory annexed from Mexico.

Hall was elected as a Democrat to the Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second Congresses, serving from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1853. During his Congressional service he was the chairman of the Committee on Private Land Claims (Thirty-first Congress), and of the Committee on Public Lands (Thirty-second Congress).

He moved to St. Joseph, Missouri in 1854 and continued practicing law. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1856.

Civil War

In 1861 Hall was a member of the constitutional convention of Missouri that affirmed a policy of armed neutrality (first put forth by outgoing governor Robert Marcellus Stewart) that Missouri would remain in the Union but would not send troops or supplies to either side.

When Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson, with the support lieutenant governor Thomas C. Reynolds, refused an order from Abraham Lincoln to send troops to support the Union cause, Federal General Nathaniel Lyon sought to depose the governor and captured Jefferson City, Missouri. The constitutional convention then was reconvened minus the pro-Southern legislators and the Unionists declared the office of governor and lieutenant governor vacant.

Hamilton Rowan Gamble was named provisional governor and Hall made lieutenant governor. Hall succeeded Gamble when the latter died from pneumonia after a fall in 1864.

Hall was also a brigadier general in the pro-Union Missouri Militia. He commanded the northwestern Missouri district until 1863.

Later years

After leaving his unelected office at the war's end, Hall resumed his law practice in St. Joseph. He died there in 1882 and was buried in Mount Mora Cemetery.

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