Adeline Susannah (Boblett) Hall was born on September 23, 1844, in Dayton, Ohio, the daughter of John and Susannah (Black) Boblett. When the 1850 census was taken, they were living in Wabash County, Indiana, where her mother died in August1850. The family moved to Guthrie County, Iowa before 1860, and her father remarried.

Adeline was a nurse during the Civil War. In 1867, she went to Kansas to teach school. She met James Knox Polk Hall at Minneapolis, Kansas, during an Indian raid and married him on January 31, 1869. They had three children: Sharlot Mabridth Hall (1870-1943) John Wesley Hall (September 14, 1872 – November 1, 1872), and Edward “Ted” V. Hall (March 11, 1874-September 26, 1928).

The family traveled to the Prescott area, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, by covered wagon in 1882. At first, John Hall worked a hydraulic gold mining operation on Lynx Creek.  In 1890, they homesteaded property they later named Orchard Ranch near Dewey, Arizona.  In the book More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Arizona Women, author Wynne Brown stated, “Adeline Boblett began married life as a bright, ambitious, energetic young woman, but grew tight-lipped and often ill.”

Adeline, with her medical knowledge, helped many persons in need of assistance.  According to Sharlot Hall’s biographer, Sharlot thought her mother, "brilliant, ambitious and completely frustrated by her husband's lack of sensitivity to her needs" (See Margaret Maxwell’s A Passion for Freedom: The Life of Sharlot Hall).  Maxwell wrote: “Just after the Halls had weathered their first bitterly cold, snowy winter on the new spread, in March 1891, James Hall fell seriously ill.  It was three months before he was even able to get out of bed.  However, it would seem from what Sharlot said that Adeline Hall rose to the challenge and joyfully took charge.” Adeline was a typical ranch women who did the many chores associated with life on the ranch.

Adeline was very important in Sharlot’s life, and she supported her daughter’s interests. She was an inspiration for Sharlot who once said that all of her poems were written to please her mother or to put into written words things she had suggested.

Adeline’s daughter, Sharlot, after whom Sharlot Hall Museum is named, is also represented in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden. Adeline died on August 24, 1912, in the hospital with Sharlot at her side, and was buried in the Simmons Plot, Arizona Pioneers' Home Cemetery. Her newspaper obituary published in the Weekly Journal-Miner dated August 28, 1912, described her “…pioneer woman of Arizona who was endowed with a beautiful character and a kindly disposition. “

Donor: Edith (Lambert) Favour
Photo Located: Sharlot M. Hall Collection MS-12, Box 18, F-4, I-1985.001.079
Updated: 9/21/2015, D. Sue Kissel