Jude Hall


Jude Hall was an African-American soldier in the American Revolutionary War. He served from 1775 to 1783, thus earning his freedom from slavery. After the war, he married and settled in Exeter, New Hampshire, where his homestead is still known as Jude's Pond. Three of his children were kidnapped and sold into slavery, and two of his grandsons fought in the American Civil War.

Military service

Jude Hall, of Exeter, New Hampshire, enlisted in May 1775 in the 3rd New Hampshire militia regiment and fought in the Revolutionary War under General Enoch Poor for eight years, earning his freedom from slavery. He was profiled in William C. Nell's book Colored Patriots of New Hampshire, with Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons in 1855, which states: "He was a great soldier and was known in NH to the day of his death by the name Old Rock." Hall was possibly the most famous New Hampshire African-American patriot.

Timeline

After his eight years of service, he finally received compensation in October 1786.

Family life

Hall lived his entire life in the Exeter area. "Jude's Pond", located on 70 Drinkwater Road in Exeter, New Hampshire, was his homestead as a free man and still bears his name. The area is still quite wooded and lonely, but he successfully carved out a small home, which no longer stands. According to Bell's 1888 book, Hall was "a powerful man who could lift a barrel of cider and drink from it."
Jude married Rhoda, sister of Reverend Thomas Paul, in 1785 and they had a large family on Drinkwater Road. Three of their sons were stolen into slavery. His eldest daughter Dorothy married Robert Roberts, butler to Massachusetts Senator Christopher Gore and author of .
Roberts gave affidavit testimony regarding 18-year-old James' abduction from his home on Drinkwater Road by an Exeter citizen, David Wedgwood.
Two of Jude and Rhoda's grandsons, Moses and Aaron, served in the Civil War. Jude and Rhoda's nephew was the Exeter-born abolitionist poet James Monroe Whitfield.
In his history of the town of Exeter, published in 1888, Charles Henry Bell penned a memorable description of Jude Hall as "a man of powerful physique...it is said that the parts of his ribs which are usually cartilaginous were of solid bone, so that his vital organs were enclosed in a sort of osseous case." According to Bell, Hall was the chief witness of the government in the trial of John Blaisdell for the 1822 homicide of another Exeter resident, John Wadleigh. Both were neighbors of Hall.
Hall died in 1827, and his actual gravesite is unknown. In 2000 a descendant of Hall's enslaver erected a memorial stone in his honor in the Winter Street Cemetery in Exeter. Widow Rhoda moved to Belfast, Maine, to live with her daughter Mrs. Rhodia Cook. Rhoda died February 21, 1844 in Belfast.