Railroad Gazette/Volume 38/Number 5/John M. Hall
Ex-President John M. Hall.
With the death of ex-President John M. Hall, of the New Haven, there passes away almost the last of the old-fashioned railroad presidents who lived so late as to be in charge of a great railroad system. It was a type of railroad administration that stood by itself, marked by integrity, economy, conservatism and fidelity to its tasks, but not by progressiveness and keen forecast. In the case of ex-President Hall the personality was the more vivid because he stood between two contrasted administrations, those of Presidents C. P. Clark and C. S. Mellen, each, in its way radical, even dramatic.
John M. Hall.
Ex-President Hall was born in Willimantic, Conn., Oct. 16, 1841, in a family that struck back its roots to rich Puritan stock. He received a public school education, tried business but dropped it to secure a liberal education, passed through Yale in the class of 1866 with high literary honors, studied law at Columbia and practiced it at Willimantic, served five terms in the Connecticut legislature and was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut in 1889. He was eloquent in speech, well versed in law and, as a Republican party leader, was classed as a “practical” politician; but on the bench he threw politics behind and in the Connecticut deadlock of 1890–2 rendered a decision directly adverse to his party’s interest. President Clark, immersed in large schemes of expansion, needed a man in his company who knew Connecticut law, men, politics and affairs. And, in 1893, he induced Judge Hall to surrender what was sure promotion to the supreme bench of the state for the more arduous and responsible but also much higher paid duties of First Vice-President of the New Haven Company. He remained vice-president until 1899, somewhat specializing his work on state legislation, and late in that year succeeded President Clark, continuing in office until the succession of President Mellen in 1903.
The four years’ administration of President Hall spanned a transition period in the history of the New Haven corporation. President Clark, with what was called radicalism then but has lost that title now, had carried through consolidation and created a territorial monopoly in southern New England; but the problem of operation had yet to be worked out and was to wait for President Mellen. The gap between the two President Hall was called upon to fill. It needed a trained railroad operator of the up-to-date stamp and that President Hall was not. He worked faithfully, gave vigilant attention to details, was zealous for the interests of the road and was a close and rigid economist. In the cause of economy he even one year declared independence of the Connecticut lobby whose bills for a preceding session of the legislature he had remorselessly pared down; but an initial defeat at the state capital on an important measure brought his corporation to its knees. It was not until near the close of his administration that he awoke to the needs of his company in the direction of new equipment and the development of through freight business. Then, with the aid of the new Vice-President, Mr. Todd, he made the first important beginnings in the purchase of new locomotives and cars, the development of coal traffic, acquirement of water frontage at Boston and the exchange of high class westward freight from non-competitive points for long hauls of eastward freight to competitive stations.
In one direction, however, the administration of President Hall was advanced, not to say radical. Believing in the policy of acquiring electric roads he pushed still further the theory and practice of President Clark. The main features of his electric policy were the electrification of lines of his system east of Providence in competition with the trolleys; and, more novel, the self parallelism of the Norwich & Worcester division by connected electric railways almost reaching between the two cities. The scheme has not, in itself, yet proved a financial success. But with its liberal charter and under its new title of “Consolidated Railway Company” it has become the basic holding corporation in which most of the electric properties of the New Haven Company have been merged.
The trying labor troubles of the New Haven Company two years ago fell upon President Hall when in poor health, hastened his retirement, and, undoubtedly, his death. He withdrew from the presidency a few months later after a comparatively brief tenure of office not marked by great achievement but by tireless industry, single-- hearted devotedness to the welfare of his corporation and ideals well nigh Puritan of official integrity.