CRATER LAKE TOURS ARE ANNOUNCED

Medford Mail Tribune, June 24, 1919, page 2

    While having Mrs. W. Bucher Fonda, Mrs. Oliver Crocker Stevens and their niece, Miss Winifred Mackay, a Raymond Whitcomb party from Boston, for an outing on the Rogue River yesterday Court Hall had a narrow escape from drowning. The recent rains have swelled the river several inches. Wearing heavy canvas waders, Court endeavored to wade out to one of his favorite places just above the lone pine. The current swept him off his feet and carried him down the river 100 feet before he regained his balance at a more shallow place, waist deep in the center of the river, where he remained with great difficulty, with deep, swift current on either side. Being unable to swim in the swift current with heavy waders on, he called for help. The women in the party responded nobly. Mrs. Stevens ran up the river for three-eighths of a mile for Walter Hawk, who had accompanied the party as chauffeur.
    Mrs. Fonda grabbed a rope from the automobile, and here Miss Mackay proved herself a heroine. She tied the rope to the root of a tree, pulled off her shoes, and endeavored to swim to Court with the rope. The current, however, carried her immediately into the bank. After several attempts this method of rescue had to be given up. Court managed to cast his line to Miss Mackay, but the rope was too short to reach the desired spot. In the meantime Mrs. Stevens had made Walter Hawk understand that something was wrong, and he hurried to the rescue. After getting the baggage straps and a pair of weed chains from the car, he and Miss Mackay managed to get the rope to Court; after tying the rope around his body they dragged him out through the swift current. The cold water had benumbed Court so that he could only have held out a few minutes longer if help had not reached him.
    Court presented Miss Mackay with a very fine gold quartz stickpin for the bravery she displayed and says in all the rest of his life never will he forget the heroism of this girl, to whom he owes his life.
Medford Mail Tribune, September 9, 1919, page 8

    I announce my candidacy for the office of county commissioner on the Republican ticket, subject to the will of the voters at the primaries, May 21, 1920. If elected I promise an economical, fair and impartial administration of the duties of the office. I have always been for good roads.
(Adv.)                                                                                            COURT HALL.
Ashland Tidings, May 19, 1920, page 4


    So far as the dark men at the [Hotel] Oregon are concerned, Court Hall of Medford is a prominent citizen, chiefly distinguished by the fact that every time he asks for his key he hands the clerk or bellhop or anybody else who is handy an apple or a pear or some seasonable fruit from Jackson County. Mr. Hall runs a garage as an occupation and cultivates apples as an avocation.
"Those Who Come and Go," Morning Oregonian, Portland, May 24, 1920, page 8


"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, October 20, 1921, page 4


    Whether the subject is apples or automobiles, Court Hall of Medford is interested. There is a reason for this, as Mr. Hall is an orchardist in the famous Rogue River country, and he is also in the garage business at Medford, the garage being strategically situated where it can be reached by the tourists over the Pacific Highway. Mr. Hall is at the Hotel Oregon for a few days.
"Those Who Come and Go," Morning Oregonian, Portland, May 23, 1922, page 10

Medford Mail Tribune, March 2, 1930, page B1

    Suns, rains and snows failed to weather its boards of sugar pine as season after season resigned to give place to another, completing the cycle of each new year dating down from 1872. March winds that blew through the sturdy maples and walnuts, lashing their branches across the high roof, preparing it for the coming tattoo of April rains, left few scars on the old Beall house, constructed 58 years ago as home of Thomas Fletcher and Anne Beall, former pioneers of Jackson County.
    Today the stately old house of southern colonial design surrenders to human hands. Rafters and beams that knew the echoes of pioneer children's voices, the clatter of horses' hoofs hurrying down Beall Lane, the road that leads by the house through one of the richest farming areas of Southern Oregon, are yielding to the hammers and hatchets of wreckers.
    They are tearing down the old Beall house in order that John C. Thorson, who recently purchased the farm from Asbury Beall of the West Side district, son of Thomas Fletcher and Anne, may replace it with a modern bungalow.
    The rafters and beams will learn new echoes. They will be utilized in the construction of the bungalow. For while styles in architecture, dress and travel have changed and its owners died, the sugar pine lumber has retained its youth. Today the timbers, scattered about the grounds where lilacs bloomed before long white columns in springtime, are better than those used in most present-day houses, according to carpenters who are wrecking the structure.
    Motorists who in future drive through the lane which lies between highways will miss the friendly lights that used to twinkle at travelers through old-fashioned window panes. But to pioneers of Southern Oregon, who attended the first winter school ever held in the region of Central Point, and what is now Medford, conducted in the "east room," the old Beall house will always be standing protected by maples and walnuts. For the memories, of which it is the foundation, will never surrender to wreckers.
    Prof. J. N. Hall, father of Court Hall of this city and brother of the former Mrs. Anne Beall, taught the school before the "east room" fireplace, one of the three that warmed the eight-room house.
    His son Court, the Bealls, the Merrimans and Plymales attended the classes and were later rewarded for flights in mental arithmetic, when the house was thrown open for dancing parties and "Old Man" Beery, father of Wilkes Beery, tuned up his fiddle.
    The children who went to the school were: Bell Merriman (Mrs. Fronk of Portland), Effie Merriman (Mrs. Mill of Seattle), Cassie Plymale (Mrs. John Curry of San Francisco), Tyson, Lee, Tom and Clara Beall, children of Mr. and Mrs. Thos. Fletcher Beall and Mamie Beall (Mrs. Chas. Strang of Medford), daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R. V. Beall, whose house, constructed on the adjoining farm in 1865, is still standing and owned by their son, Vinton Beall.
    Mrs. Ed Strohmeier of Central Point (Lulu Beall), the youngest of the eight children, was not admitted to the classes in the "east room" for educational purposes, she stated a few days ago when reminiscing, but frequently sauntered up the long, winding stairway to bring down the fire shovel. The school and the school master in particular stood out clearly in her memory because on one of these occasions he gave her several energetic raps on the legs as she loitered from step to step, crying out in singsong fashion, "Bring me the shobel, bring me the shobel."
    Court Hall's cousins, who lived at Myrtle Creek and came down to attend summer school at Central Point each year, did not participate in the spelling and arithmetic matches in the "east room" but were frequent visitors at the Beall house and enjoyed sliding down the long, polished banister of the stairway, which led into the downstairs hall.
    Even as people with character, the old house has known sorrow. Death visited it almost frequently, taking from the family three children, Carrie, Tom and Ben Beall. The three deaths are compensated in its record by three births. Tyson, Lee and Lulu Beall were born there.
    The house was not completed when Tom was born at the R. V. Beall home, due to the fact that his father was called to Rancheria, which was then owned by Mr. Beall and his brother. Work was discontinued for a while and Tom, who was expected to be the first son born in the big white house, arrived at the home of his aunt and uncle. His brothers and sisters, who are still living, are: Asbury Beall of Medford, Mrs. I. M. Lewis of Reno, Nev.; Lee Beall of Lakeview, Ore.; Tyson Beall of Willow Creek, Calif., and Mrs. Ed Strohmeier of Central Point.
    Rides on spirited horses down the lane and across the fields are also recalled with happy days by Mrs. Strang. The horses are not so vivid in the mind of Court Hall as the famous old jack, who ruled the barn lot at the Beall ranch and left the imprint of his teeth in several chunks of flesh. He lists among the moments of greatest suspense in his life the few seconds he lay limp in the jack's stall one afternoon after falling through the hay loft, where he had been gathering eggs. The jack, for the first time equally frightened, did not show his long teeth at Court or give out his terrifying bray. On another day, however, when he was watering the domineering beast, belonging to his uncle, he was knocked down and was staring into a mouth full of ugly teeth, which were approaching his throat, when the slamming of the house door caused the jack to bolt and run.
    More pleasant events at the Beall home in Court Hall's memories are the mental arithmetic contests inspired by his father at winter classes and the big dance given 44 years ago in celebration of his birthday.
    The "visit" in the valley of John Chapman of Red Lodge, Mont., a cousin of the Bealls, and a handsome beau brummell, was always the inspiration for a big party, Mrs. Strang and Mrs. Ed Strohmeier say. The latchstring of the Beall house was out to friends from all sections of Southern Oregon, and though the nails that fastened the extra candle holders on the walls to light the big house were all that Mrs. Strohmeier, little sister, saw of the parties, she remembers them as gala events.
    Mr. Chapman is now a capitalist in Red Lodge but remembers with Mrs. Strang the sheet and pillow case masquerade, with the grotesque shadows cast by the weird costumes on the hearths while flames roared up the chimneys built by Mr. Priddy, father of George Priddy, who also did the plastering of the house.
    Seasoned with these memories, the house has endured, each of the eight rooms contributing something of romance to the lives of Southern Oregon's early settlers and their descendants. The "dark room" upstairs, which was lighted only by a transom, the spacious pantry downstairs, with a cookie jar, always filled, the "east room" facing snow-capped Mt. Pitt, the two big rooms downstairs with fireplaces voicing hospitality through crackling logs, withstood all trials but the insistent and destructive tools of the wreckers.
    The shingles, hand shaved by Joe Geppert in the early '90s to replace those made by Dave Dunlap when the house was built, fall to the ground to exhibit firm textures, through which the most ambitious rains have not penetrated.
    The beams and rafters, dovetailed in the manner of those in King Solomon's temple, along with the hand-dressed lumber, still bear the penciled lines drawn by thorough carpenters of the past century.
    They will soon resign themselves to the markings of the modern carpenter's pencil, even as they have fallen before the wreckers. They will be sawed and planed and nailed into a "modern bungalow," where there will be no corner plaques beneath the roof reading "1872."
Medford Mail Tribune, August 3, 1930, page B3

    From 1900 to 1906 he taught school in what was then known as the Lone Pine School, which was near what is now Medford. In 1889 he was united in marriage to Mabel C. Owen of Central Point. Three years later they moved to Medford, where they have lived continuously since. For the last 30 years he has been engaged in the orchard business, known as the Young & Hall Orchard.
    Mr. Hall operated the first automobile stage between Medford and Crater Lake. He also brought the first airplane to this valley.
    He was a charter member of the BPOE of Medford, being one of those active in its formation. He was active in the order up until failing health kept him at home.
    He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Mabel C. Hall; one son, Seely V. Hall of Piedmont, Cal., and one sister, Miss Pearl Hall of Lakeview.
    Complete funeral arrangement will be announced later by the Conger Funeral Parlors.

Medford Mail Tribune, September 2, 1940, page 6

Court Hall Passes On