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Show Colonel Chalmers Gaither Hall Lauded For Work Among Utes As Early Agent In West Point Memorial EDITOR'S NOTE:- In 1903 a young Army officer arrived in the Uinta Basin to take up the duties of U. S. Indian Agent at the Uintah - Ouray reservation. Old time residents will remember remem-ber this officer as Chalmers Gaither Hall, a graduate of the United States Military Academy in the class of 1897. The story of Captain Hall and his work with the Ute Indians is published in a memorial roll of the U. S. Military Academy. We are indebted to Captain Stephen Abbot, of Randlett, an old West Pointer, for the use of the memorial from which the following account of Captain Chalmers Gaither Hall has been taken. y Chalmers Gaither Hall was born in North Wilksboro, North Carolina, in 1875, the son of a Civil War Veteran. At the age of 17 he left the Hyland Academy I in North Carolina and entered the United States Military Acad-, emy, whence he graduated with 1 the class of 1897 with a Second Lieutenant's commission. He had been engaged in his chosen career, that of the United States Army, for one year when the United States declared war on Spain. Lieutenant Hall was ordered to active service with the Fifth Cavalry, as Department Ordinance Officer, in Puerto Rico. In December of 1900, with his family, he returned to the United States, and still With the Fifth Cavalry saw duty at Ft. Ethan Allan, Vermont. In February, Feb-ruary, 1901 he was transferred to Fort Grant, Arizona, where he served as troop and post commander. com-mander. While on this assignment assign-ment he was promoted to the grade of First Lieutenant. A short tour of duty then brought him to Ft. Duchesne as troop commander, along with his other duties. In July, 1902 he was transferred to the Philippines Philip-pines where he remained until July of the following year. His promotion to the grade of Captain Cap-tain came in 1903 and then followed fol-lowed a most interesting assignment assign-ment he was appointed U. S. Indian Agent at the Uintah and , Ouray reservation in Utah. Here his interest in human rights was quickly established and exhibited. exhibit-ed. It so happened that on the Uintah-Ouray reservation, con-, trary to their wishes, several bands of the Ute tribe were biv-ouaced biv-ouaced together. Here were the U i n t a h s, Uncompahgres and White Rivers, the latter having been sent to the Uinta Basin as a result of the Meeker Massacre committed by them in Colorado. All of these bands preferred to live on their own lands and , so deeply resented the opening of the reservation to white settlement set-tlement that Captain Hall accompanied ac-companied their chiefs to Washington, Wash-ington, D. C. where during a stay of six weeks,, their grievances griev-ances were placed before President Presi-dent Theodore Roosevelt. v In Washington the. Utesr Had a, great time, buying walking sticks and souvenirs, bujt they obtained no relief from their-grievances, their-grievances, so returned to the reservation with, their friend and champion, Captain Chalmers Gaither Hall. Among the chiefs who made the Washington trip were: "Red Cap," "David Copper-field,' Copper-field,' "Charlie Chavanaugh," "Appah," "Wichits," "Joseph Arrive," "John Duncan," "Charley "Char-ley Mack," and Succuioff." Following the.return from the unsuccessful Washington journey the Ute bands s became hostile and threatened to burn the reservation res-ervation and the Agent's home. I As the. signs of unrest became apparent a troop of the Fifth Cavalry was dispatched from 'nearby Ft. Duchesne to guard the reservation and its few white I inhabitants. The Indians, seething with discontent, decided to leave the reservation and with their families, fam-ilies, cattle and possessions moved on to South Dakota in the fall of 1905. During the winter win-ter that followed they endured I many hardships and many of them died of exposure and starvation. star-vation. Finally the United States Government Gov-ernment took the remaining Indians In-dians into the Cavalry Post at Fort Meade, South Dakota. Meanwhile, in an endeavor to persuade the Indians to ' return to the Uintah reservation, Captain Cap-tain Hall, unarmed and alone, set out to meet representatives of the Ute bands at Rock Springs, Wyoming, and finally succeeded in obtaining their consent to return. In order to facilitate the work on and about the reservation, the Department of the Interior furnished Captain Hall with a red 1904 model Buick car. The Captain had not previously driven driv-en a car, but he brought it successfully suc-cessfully from the station at Price to the Uintah Basin. Upon his arrival the Indians gathered about the car, and after carefully care-fully inspecting it one of them asked for a ride. Captain Hall's consent almost caused the Buick to be submerged beneath swarms of Indians. Captain Hall endeared himself to the Utes of the Uintah-Ouray reservation by his kindliness, patience and understanding of their problems, both great and small. And many were the disputes dis-putes that were brought to him for settlement. To insure the smooth and peaceful operation of the reser-l vation Captain Hall instituted a police force of picked Indians from the various bands, with Chief John Duncan of the White River band designated as Police Captain. . H a ll's psychological move proved a success and its aim was accomplished. After 4 seven eventful and " interesting in-teresting years with the Utes, Captain. Hall was transferred to Hawaii, and later to the Army School of the Line at Fort Leavenworth, Leav-enworth, Kansas. Following his graduation he returned to Hawaii to become Assistant Constructing Construct-ing Quartermaster in the erec-I erec-I tion of the permanent post of the Schofield Barracks. In 1916 ill health necessitated his transfer trans-fer to Letterman General Hospital Hos-pital in San Francisco. With the entrance of the United Unit-ed States into World War-1, Hall was detailed to Hie Office of the Chief of Air Corps as a full Colonel in charge of organizing Air Corps troops for overseas duty. This assignment was appealing ap-pealing to Colonel Hall who had ever shown a deep interest in internal in-ternal combustion engines. On active duly in France, Colonel Hall was in charge of organizing night bombardment and remained in the position until un-til February, 1919, when he was transferred to the Washington office of the Chief of Air Corps. From there "on he became closely associated with "lighter than air" aviation, taking balloon bal-loon observation training at Ross Field, California and airplane air-plane pilot instruction at Lang-ley Lang-ley Field and Aberdeen, Maryland. Mary-land. It may be . remembered that i Colonel Hall was a survivor" of I the ill-fated "Shenendoah," the dirigible which broke into pieces during a violent thunderstorm over Ohio, in September, 1925. His escape from being hurled to death was miraculous, for. when the crash came he was on the ladder leading from the control cabin to the rear portion of the ship. As he started to fall, (the control cabin . had broken away from the rest of. the ship) he clutched a girder to which he hung suspended; eventually he managed to swing his body over it and crawl forty or fifty feet back into the ship. Colonel Hall, with other survivors in the ship's nose, valved the helium in order to bring it down as a free balloon. "So light was the gas and so abrupt our landing that when we struck a tree on a hilltop,, we bounced almost 1500 feet in. the air before settling. down smoothly," smooth-ly," Colonel Hall reported to the Board of Inquiry which investigated inves-tigated the disaster. Colonel Hall retired from active ac-tive duty in February, 1939. He died January 3, 1946. |