Samuel Hall, 47 Years a Slave: A Brief Story of His Life Before and After Freedom Came to Him

NOTE TO THE READER: THIS IS THE LARGE PRINT EDITION OF: Samuel Hall, 47 Years a Slave. IT HAS been the good fortune of the writer of these lines to become rather intimately acquainted with Samuel Hall, colored, of Washington, Iowa. When I was in the grocery business Mr. Hall used to peddle vegetables and occasionally he would unload a few bunches of onions, radishes, early beets, new potatoes, tomatoes, celery, etc., at our store. On such occasions, it was always a pleasure to jolly the old man for he was old then–a dozen years ago. He was an old man thirty and even forty years ago, old as boys and girls look upon age, but always he has been young in spirit and even as a little child in his simple, Christian faith. But, it was by means of those little business associations that I first got acquainted with Samuel Hall and later that acquaintance grew deeper and more cordial when Samuel Hall and John Wagner used to sit by the stove in the grocery on cold winter days and argue religion. Those arguments used to grow quite animated at times, and Mr. Hall was frequently much put out because he had to stop and spit out a large quantity of Old Kentucky juice before he could safely give vocal expressions to his argumentative thoughts. He was always a ready arguer, however, and he and Mr. Wagner often made otherwise dull days quite endurable for those who were permitted to hear their controversies.