Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Side 1: James Hall was born on October 8, 1760, in Keene, New Hampshire. Records of the Continental Army indicate that James Hall of Keene was mustered into service about August 20, 1776. Hall served throughout the Revolutionary War as an infantry soldier of the Continental Army line. New Hampshire units participated in the important campaign of the fall of 1777 which culminated in the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga on October 17, 1777. Hall continued to serve with the Continental Army as it endured the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. On June 28, 1778, he was in the ranks of Poor's Brigade at the battle of Monmouth where he participated in the final advance of the day in that "hottest day of battle". James Hall was promoted to sergeant on April 1, 1780. He served on through the war and was present at Yorktown in October, 1781, in Col. Alexander Scammell's Third New Hampshire Regiment. When the war ended, twenty-one year old James Hall was a full-time fighting patriot. Side 2: During the next two decades, James Hall became a doctor. At length, he decided to move to the Spanish territory of Florida. In 1790, Dr. James Hall, then aged thirty, settled near Cow Ford (now Jacksonville). He was the first known American physician to sustain the practice of medicine in Florida. In 1803, the first settler of Cow Ford, Robert Pritchard, died. Since his arrival in 1783, Pritchard had acquired considerable land holdings. These included seven hundred acres in the Goodby's Lake region and sixteen thousand acres on Julington Creek. Within the year of Robert Pritchard's, his thirty-six year old widow, Eleanor (nee Plummer) married the forty-four year old Doctor James Hall. The Halls made their home in what is now called Plummer's Cove. Here Dr. Hall sustained his practice until 1810, at the age of fifty, he was banished from East Florida by the Spanish for having participated in the "Florida-Georgia Rebellion." On February 22, 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States, and in 1822 Doctor Hall returned to what had become Jacksonville. He continued his medical practice and was active in many community matters, such as testifying at Spanish Land Grant hearings. James Hall died at LaGrange, Florida (on Plummer's Cove) on December 25, 1837.