William Hall (governor)
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William Hall (February 11, 1775–October 7, 1856) was the Governor of the state of Tennessee from April to October of 1829.
Hall was a native of North Carolina but came to Tennessee while still a young man and became a prosperous farmer as well as a political leader. After serving in the Creek War, he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1797, serving there until 1805. He served as a brigadier general in the War of 1812. He was was elected to the Tennessee State Senate in 1821, where he was later to serve as speaker.
A Democrat, as senate speaker he succeeded to the office of governor under the Tennessee state constitution when Samuel Houston resigned the post. He did not stand for election as governor in his own right. He was the first governor of Tennessee ever to serve out the unexpired portion of a term to which another person had been elected, and, as of now, served for a shorter period of time as governor of Tennessee than anyone else to serve in that position. An ally of Andrew Jackson, Hall later served in the U.S. House of Representatives for one term (1831–1833) (Twenty-second Congress) and then retired from public life, dying over two decades later on his farm, "Locust Land", in Sumner County and being buried in the family cemetery there.
Some of the biographical detail in this article is derived from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.