 Benjamin Franklin HallFaithful
Gospel Preacher Of The 19th Century, Doctor, Dentist, and Minister. B.
F. Hall preached throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and
ultimately Texas. He was married to Dorindo Chisholm Hall (daughter of
John and Esther) until her death in June, 1831. In 1826 he noticed in
his preaching that there were many responding mourners that found no
comfort. Upon reading the Campbell/McCalla debate of 1823 he noted that
baptism was for remission of sins. As he read,
". . . he sprang to his feet and clapping his hands, cried out, ‘Eureka! Eureka! I have found it! I have found it!'" After this he began teaching that the gospel must be obeyed, and it was obeyed through baptism for the remission of sins. He did much to solidify the Stone/Campbell teaching on the purpose of baptism. In the fall of that same year while in a meeting on Cypress Creek just north of Florence, Alabama, he preached these truths to the people inviting a response. Many responded including a young sixteen year old boy named Tolbert Fanning. Fanning responded to the preaching and obeyed the gospel September, 1826. James E. Matthews baptized Fanning the next morning after Hall had stressed baptism for the remission of sins in his preaching, making Fanning one of the first people in that region to be baptized scripturally, unto remission of sins. Later Hall migrated west, following family members and friends who left from Waterloo, Alabama to established the first church in Clarksville, Texas, in the 1830s. He ultimately settled about forty miles north of Dallas, just south of Sherman in Grayson County. He purchased property and operated a farm about four miles west of Howe, Texas. From his farm he traveled in many different directions, starting and nurturing congregations of the Lord's church through his evangelism. (A cemetery bearing his name, Hall Cemetery, was located on the edge of his property where many of the earliest New Testament Christians in Texas are now buried.) During the Civil War he was an active participant in the South, strongly condemning Northern aggression. After the war he continued preaching and teaching in that area until his death May 1, 1873. History owes a great debt of gratitude to this man of God for standing for the truth. He held the feet of Stone, Campbell, and many other early restoration leaders to the fire, so to speak, in insisting that baptismal regeneration was only part of the truth concerning what took place in baptism, that only through full immersion in water could one be forgiven of his/her sins. For an autobiography and other writings about Hall, go to Scott Harp's Web site at www.therestorationmovement.com.  TSHA 
 During
the Civil War, B. F. Hall was chaplain in the Sixth Texas Cavalry,
organized by Col. Barton W. Stone, Jr., of Dallas, Chaplain Hall served
for nine months and was in the battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove,
near Fayetteville, Arkansas.
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