Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Hall, William Gaspe
Parallel form(s) of name
- Hall, William G.
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1807-1882
History
William Gaspe Hall (1807-1882) was born to Irish-born George Benson Hall (1780-1821) and Quebec City-born Marianne Angelique Fortier (1784-?) in Amherstburg, Upper Canada. For a time William worked for the Hon. Angus Mackintosh, Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading post in Sandwich, Ontario, but he also held a number of official posts during his lifetime. These included an 1836 appointment as inspector of tavern, shop, and still licenses for the Western District of Upper Canada, and an 1838 appointment as captain in the Second Regiment of Essex Militia. For many years he served as inspector of inland revenue for the Western District. Through these various roles Hall became wealthy enough to buy, after Mackintosh’s death, all of his former employer’s substantial property along the Detroit River near present-day Gladstone Avenue. This property included Lot 93, upon which Mackintosh’s impressive home, Moy House, and the former HBC trade warehouse were located, as well as the Moy farm, and the adjoining Lot 82 land. William Hall, his wife Frances Julia Baby (1821-1875), and their family inhabited Moy Hall 1835-1882, at which time it passed into other hands. In 1911-1912 Moy Hall was torn down and Lots 93 and 82 were subdivided for residential housing. In tribute to the former owners, two streets running through the subdivision were named Moy Avenue and Hall Avenue.
Sources: Frances Cleary, “Passing of Moy Hall,” Essex Historical Society Papers and Addresses vol. III (1921), pp. 59-64 https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=swoda-windsor-region; William Gaspe Hall family tree, Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.ca/genealogy/records/william-gasp%C3%A9-hall-24-22305vk (both accessed 22 February 2023).