JOHN Z.L.N HAIL
"History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties"
O.L. Baskin and Co Historical Publishers. 183 Lake Street.
Edited by William Henry Perrin. 1883. Mid-Continent Public Genealogy
Library: UMI LH4495 microfiche.
The following is from the Biographical section of the book for Alexander County, under JOHN Z.L.N. HAIL.
{As a side note. The article had several facts incorrect. However, most of the article was confirmed by other data,
in regards to John Hail. I will put the corrections in parenthesis. Except for his mother. I have found her name
as both Strand and Stroud. ( June 2001)}
John Z.J.(L.) N. Hail, millwright and farmer, P.O. Mill Creek, Union County. Elias Hail, the father of our subject,
was born in North Carolina in 1791; reached manhood and married Nancy Strand (Stroud), daughter of A. Strand. (Stroud)
She was the mother of seven children. Of that number, our subject is the youngest, and was born July 3, 1851. (1831)
The father, when subject was about four years of age, left North Carolina and came to Newton County, Ga., where
he died the next year. Our subject attended school but three
months, and obtained most of his education in after live, by the light of the back-log. As soon as he was old enough,
he learned the trade of a carpenter and millwright, under a man by the name of James Key, of Jonesboro, Ga. When
he reached manhood, he married, August 20, 1856, Margaret Ann Hurdle, a native of North Carolina. She was the mother
of four children all of whom are dead.
Our subject (John Hail) moved to Montgomery, Ala, in the fall of 1856, and there commenced operations by working
at the trade of a journeyman carpenter for about a year and a half. In the fall of 1857, he again moved, this time
to Marion County, of the same state, where under the homestead law, he entered a farm of 320 acres. At this point,
he had hardly become settled, when the troubles of the war commenced to make things very unpleasant. Although born
in the South, and at the time living in the heart of the Southern Confederacy, he did not believe that secession
was right, and would
not enlist on that side. He was compelled, finally, to fly for safety, and so one night he and his Union neighbors
formed themselves into a body and started north toward the Union lines. There were 108 men in the company when
it left Marion County, but their journey was beset everywhere by difficulties. The exact position of the Union
forces could not be ascertained, and guerrillas and rebels fought them on every hand, and when at last, on September
7, 1862, the company reached the Union lines, at Tunnel Bridge, on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, in Tennessee,
where the Seventh Illinois Cavalry was stationed, there were but eight men, and he immediately enlisted in that
regiment, and remained there until January, 1864, when he honorably discharged on account of disability. When Mr.
Hail went away from his Southern home, (to join the Union Army) he left his wife on the old place to take care
of the property, and one night, after the husband had been gone about nine months, she received news that a band
of rebel were coming to burn down the property, She and her mother, gathering together a little clothing, fled
the same night, to Tuscumbia, Ala. where a brother of Mr. Hail was engaged in running a bakery and the next night
the house and outbuildings were burned to the ground. At that town, Mrs. Hail
remained until some time in June, 1863, when Gen. doge, at the head of a large body of Union cavalry, made a raid
through that section, and routed the Southern forces in and around Tuscumbia, when the victorious force came North
again, Mrs. Hail place herself under the soldiers' care and came North, as far as Corinth with the soldiers, and
from there she was sent to Jackson, Tenn., where Mr. Hail came to see her, he having obtained a seven days' leave
of absence from LaGrange, Tenn., where soldiers were then stationed. When the husband parted from his wife at the
end of his furlough, it was their last parting. Mrs. Hail, from that place came to Richview, Washington County,
Ill., and there she died, July 7, 1863. When Mr. Hail came north the next January, he came to that town, but there
only found the silent tomb as a remembrance of his wife. He had been discharged from a hospital, and he remained
in that town until he had partially recovered his health, and then came to Ullin, Pulaski County, where he hired
to a Mr. Bell, who was then repairing his flouring mill at that point. Here our subject remained till March, 1865;
then moved to a farm near Dongola, Union County. In 1872, he purchased his present location, a farm of 100 acres
in Section 5, township 14 south, Range 1 west; also owns a half interest in the Hail’s point water mill, on Mill
Creek. Our subject, (John Hail) was married a second time, February 20, 1867, to Mrs. Isabella Anna Woodney, a
daughter of Diewault and Sallie Miller. By this union there have
been eight children, four of whom are living- Elmira, John, Calvin and Fleta May. In politics, Mr. Hail is a Republican,
and is a member of Elco Lodge, No 643...
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