There is a story in my great-grandmother's history that begs to be told. Her extraordinary pioneer life intersects with some momentous events in the history of the western frontier, particularly in North and South Dakota and Wyoming. She lived at the time of Custer's Last Stand and the massacre at Wounded Knee, and was closely associated with some of the important people involved.
Ada Clemina Hall was born on July 18, 1856 in Chittenango, NY. Both her father Andrew Adam Hall and her mother Miriam Olivia Wandell Hall were born in the Westchester County in NY. They married in 1850. Andrew Hall's family can be traced back to the original colony of Connecticut. Miriam's family is mostly of Dutch heritage. Her grandfather, Jacob Wandell was a wealthy merchant on the Hudson River during the time of the Revolutionary War.
Shortly after Ada's birth, Andrew took his family and moved west, to Ontonagon, Michigan. There, he worked in the copper mines. In 1861, a famously charismatic Army recruiter came to Detroit, and induced Andrew to sign up for the military. He served as a surgical assistant in the 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry and participated in the Peninsular Campaign in Virginia. He did laundry for other soldiers for 10 cents, and sent the money home to his struggling family. He was with General McClellan during the Seven Days Battle in Richmond, Virginia, during which he contracted dysentery. He spent six months in a hospital on David's Island in New York before returning to his wife and children in 1863; he was a mere skeleton of less than 100 pounds. Ada described what it was like to be so poor. She said their clothing had worn so thin that it was nearly transparent.
The family moved to Marquette, Michigan, where Andrew worked in the mines. Then they moved to Brainerd, Michigan, where Andrew became a bridge builder. He helped to build the bridge for the Northern Pacific Railroad across the Red River to Fargo, North Dakota, opening up new land on the frontier. He also helped to build one of the first frame houses in Fargo. Most of the residents lived in rough cabins or tents, however, and that is how the Hall family lived during the Grasshopper Plague. Ada describes the scene:
Grasshoppers came that first year, 1871. They darkened the sky which when looked up at, shone like silver with their flashing wings. They ate the sides out of our tents, the linen coat off my father's back while he was mowing...
by Mrs. H. C. Crofford, "Pioneer Days in North Dakota, " in North Dakota Historical Quarterly, II, 129-137.
Ada taught school in Fargo, and later at Fort Lincoln where the Halls lived for a year in 1876. She became friends with General Custer's wife. Family lore is that Ada let her students out of school to wave to the soldiers as they left for Little Big Horn. I can't help but think that Ada and Elizabeth Custer shared a love of writing and history, as both of them wrote memoirs of their experiences and published papers in defense of Custer. Ada's paper in defense of Custer is housed in a museum in Newcastle, Wyoming. You can read it HERE.
Around 1877, Andrew and his family, with an Army escort, traveled by wagon train to settle in the Black Hills. Travelers were warned not to go ahead or lag behind the procession as it was dangerous Indian territory. One young couple ignored the warnings and went on ahead. The travelers came upon them and found them slaughtered.
The Hall family settled on a ranch near Fort Meade (now Sturgis) in South Dakota, which was established in 1878 to protect illegal white settlements and gold mines on the Sioux Reservation in the northern Black Hills (Wikipedia, Fort Meade, South Dakota). The local men would gather at "Old Man Hall's" house to discuss the recent Indian uprisings. They were particularly concerned about the Ghost Dances which were part of a religious movement among the Native Americans who believed that the spirits of the dead would return and protect them against the white man. The spread of this cult culminated in the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 (Britannica, Ghost Dance). At one of these gatherings at the Hall ranch, a young gold miner named Horace Calvin Crofford attended and met Ada Hall. They married in 1891.
Ada's brother Ed married a Native American woman named Mary Amiotte (pictured below) in 1897 and lived with her and their children on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Sterling, South Dakota - the location of the Wounded Knee massacre.
Disclaimer: I am not a historian, so forgive me if any historical facts are off. Much of my information comes from Ada's writings and family lore, which have proven to have a few "close but not quite" details. I will add more to this post as I continue my research.
