Cleveland T. Hall

The widow this plate names outlived Cleveland Hall by twenty-two years and left her own record. Born Nettie Crabb in Indiana in 1841, she came to the Wessington Springs area to homestead in February 1882 and married Hall in 1884. After his death she was elected a township school trustee, was reported in 1888 as the first woman to serve as an election judge, and ran a drugstore that sold no intoxicants. About 1895 she moved to Fitzgerald, Georgia, a colony of Union and Confederate veterans, and founded the town's first newspaper, the Enterprise. She died there in 1908.

What the plaque says

Cleveland T. Hall is credited by records of historical societies and of the U.S. Department of the Army with carrying the message which saved our nation's capital at the only time it has been seriously threatened by an invasion of enemy forces. On July 9, 1864, Confederate General Jubal Early had defeated the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, crossed the Potomac to Maryland Heights, routed General Lew Wallace's divisions at the Battle of Monocacy, thus leaving the road to Washington wide open for his advance. President Lincoln and his family, together with the Cabinet and their families, were in residence at the capital, communications between the field and Washington having been destroyed. In spite of the suffering and loss of blood from seven bullet wounds and two saber cuts, all incurred at Monocacy, Cleveland Hall rode roughshod through Confederate lines to warn the capital of the imminent attack. Several horses were shot from under him, but each time he grabbed another mount and continued his dash, reaching Washington in time for the Army to deploy 1,000 artillerymen under the command of Captain Dupont. General Early was repelled at the city limits. Cleveland Hall came to Jerauld County, Dakota Territory, in 1882 and settled in Wessington Springs. In this town he was married to Nettie C. Weems, M.D., pioneer doctor. On October 26, 1886 he succumbed to wounds suffered at Monocacy twenty-two years earlier.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Noble's Trail Campsite — 0.5 mi
• Wessington Springs — 0.6 mi
• Robert S. Vessey — 0.6 mi
• Wolsey: A Crossroad of the Heartland / Wolsey Notables — 23 mi