Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, Samuel (1769?-1852)
HALL, SAMUEL (1769?–1852), known as the ‘Sherwood Forest Patriarch,’ born about 1769, worked as a cobbler at Brookside Cottage, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. He joined the quakers at an early age, and wore the dress, though by marrying out of the pale he ceased to belong to the society. He died on 20 Aug. 1852, in his eighty-fourth year (Gent. Mag. 1852, pt. ii. 435). By his wife Eleanor Spencer, a Derbyshire shepherdess and dairymaid, he had, with other issue, a son, Spencer Timothy Hall [q. v.] Hall was author of ‘A Few Remarks offered to the consideration of the professors of the Christian name; among which are some reasons why the people called Quakers chuse to suffer loss in their property rather than actively comply with requisitions to serve in the Army or Militia, or to pay or hire others for serving in their stead,’ 8vo [Nottingham], 1797 (Joseph Smith, Cat. of Friends' Books, i. 907). He also penned a treatise on the advantages of pressure upon light soils to the growth of grain and bulbous roots, and invented a machine for sowing, manuring, and pressing turnip seed in one operation. At the age of sixty-five he wrote his ‘Will,’ in which he set forth his religious opinions.
[Authorities as above.]