By Marie Hughes, director of Chambers County Museum at Wallisville
Bobby Hall of Chambers County, Texas, speaks with admiration about his father’s remarkable journey, which began long before Bobby was born. In 1905, a young Felix Robert Hall left home to serve his country as a “stoker” aboard the USS Iowa and later the USS Franklin. The experience took him far from Texas, but when his service ended, Felix returned to his home state, settling in Tyler. There, he met and married Susie B. Loring, and together they began building both a family and a career. Their children, Robert Loring Hall, Sr., born May 17, 1914, and Mary Sue Hall, born Nov. 9, 1916, grew up with examples of hard work and perseverance.
While in Tyler, Felix and Susie B. worked for the White Abstract Company, gaining valuable experience in the title and records business. Around 1924, they moved to Canton, Texas, where they purchased an abstract company of their own and ran it together until Felix’s death in 1926. Bobby recalled that his father and aunt often stopped by the office after school.
From the age of 7, Robert would watch the daily operations, occasionally entertaining himself with pencils and office supplies. By the time he was nine, he was making trips to the courthouse to record “take-offs” for the business. “Take-offs,” Bobby explained, involved reading the various instruments filed in the county clerk’s office, noting the grantor, grantee, date, and volume/page on index cards, and adding a brief description of each instrument’s purpose.
Felix passed away on March 17, 1926, and Susie B. continued to operate the abstract company until her death in 1961.
Robert graduated from Canton High School in 1930 with plans to become an electrical engineer. He attended college in Arlington, Texas, on a co-op schedule—working for six months, then taking classes for six months. However, the Great Depression made it financially impossible for him to continue. He left college and became a full-time abstractor, working not only in Canton but across the state. On one occasion, he worked with a lawyer named Charles Troy from Beeville.
Crossed wires lead to a lengthy career
In 1935, Charles Troy invited Robert Loring Hall, Sr. to Chambers County, Texas, to help with an abstract company. On February 9 of that year, Hall traveled from Canton to Anahuac to go into business with Troy. As Bobby Hall recounted, his father described the day as cold, with ice on the ground. He first stopped in Devers for a cup of coffee and to ask for directions. A local man offered to guide him as far as Hankamer in exchange for a ride. Hall later said he was glad for the company, as the man pointed out which ruts to follow just before crossing the county line. Others in the area would later tell Bobby that some locals occasionally blocked drainage ditches so they could charge travelers to pull them out with a team of horses.
Upon arriving in Anahuac, Hall stopped at the Sherman Café at Miller and Main streets for another cup of coffee and to ask about a place to stay. He was directed across the Lone Star Canal to the Anahuac Hotel at Main and Front streets.
The next morning, Hall learned that Troy was in Houston with a broken collarbone, the result of slipping on the ice. Troy had sent a telegram telling Hall not to come, but it never reached him. In the end, Troy was glad Hall had arrived so they could begin work. This was the same period when Humble Oil Company discovered oil at Monroe City.
Hall and Troy worked together at the Chambers County Abstract Company, with Troy as lessee and Hall as manager. In 1938, Hall entered into an agreement with Guy C. Jackson, Jr. to lease and operate the company. Bobby Hall never knew if there was a written contract or just a handshake, but the arrangement lasted until 1978.
In the midst of his first year with Troy, on December 25, 1935, Hall returned to Van Zandt County to marry Myrtis Olga Hooks. She was the youngest of six children and had been raised in Edgewood, Texas. Hall brought his new bride to Chambers County, where he was living when the Anahuac courthouse caught fire. He was among those who helped save the deed records.
When the United States entered World War II, Hall was 28 years old. The exact details are unclear, but he was not accepted for military service. Instead, he worked in Chambers County’s rice farming industry, surveying land and the levees needed for irrigation. He also served as chairman of the county’s Rationing Board and contributed in other ways to the local war effort.
Hall’s surveying skills began earlier, when he assisted a land surveyor in Van Zandt County. Upon arriving in Chambers County, he recognized a need for more surveyors and began working with W.O. Work, one of the few in the area. At that time in Texas, engineers and Licensed State Land Surveyors could perform land surveys, the latter authorized to work on state-owned property and boundary lines between state and private lands. Hall studied for the Licensed State Land Surveyor exam, which was administered by the school superintendent, and passed on August 29, 1939. In 1955, when the State Legislature created the Registered Public Surveyor designation, he applied and received License Number 53.
Beyond his work as an abstractor, Robert Loring Hall, Sr. was also a licensed real estate broker with the credentials to appraise land. He served on the first board of the Chambers County Appraisal District and wrote and presented several papers to surveyor associations and land title associations on the preparation of abstracts. His commitment to the community was equally notable—he was a past member of the Anahuac Independent School District Board of Trustees, a charter member of both the Anahuac Lions Club and the Texas Surveyors Association (now the Texas Society of Professional Land Surveyors), and a member of the First Methodist Church of Anahuac, where he served as a trustee.
As Bobby Hall explained, his father began work in Anahuac at the Chambers County Abstract Company, first as manager and later as lessee. In those early years, anyone who wanted to examine the land records associated with their property would request an abstract from a title or abstract company. The abstract company would research the county records for all documents affecting the property, copy them from the county or district clerk’s office, and organize them by type of instrument in chronological order. The completed abstract provided a history of the property, often given to a land lawyer for review to determine the validity of the title.
By the 1940s, Hall’s work extended well beyond Chambers County. In addition to managing the Chambers County Abstract Company, he assisted with a company in Liberty, Texas—the predecessor to Tarver Title Company—and partnered with a Houston friend to start the Hardin County Abstract Company in Kountze. He also worked at an abstract company in Orange, Texas. Bobby recalled that as a child, he didn’t see much of his father during the week, but Hall was always home on weekends for family and church.
To make travel between these locations possible, Hall earned his pilot’s license and purchased a small airplane. He would fly from Anahuac to Liberty, then on to Orange and Kountze. In Kountze, the abstract company was managed by a man named “Slim” England, whose office was in a two-story building with living quarters upstairs. When darkness prevented Hall from flying home, he would stay there. Bobby remembered one late-1940s hurricane when his father was trapped in Kountze, speaking to his mother by phone from the storm’s path.
Hall also used his surveying skills to develop what became known as a “title map” for the areas where he worked. Starting with the first deed for a land survey, he would plot the property on a sheet of vellum at his drafting table, then add subsequent deeds to build a complete picture. With this map a person could look at the map and determine who had owned parcels in the survey and also have all of the record information about the parcel. In other words, “you had the title of the land” on a map.
Subdivisions he created
In 1949, Robert Loring Hall, Sr. recognized the need for more residential lots in Anahuac for people to purchase and build homes. He bought property and developed it into what became the Airport Addition, now the subdivision bisected by East Light Street. In 1952, he added the Belton Lane Addition, today bisected by South Kansas Street, south of Belton Lane.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hall turned his attention to a subdivision originally platted in 1910 but never developed. Known as Bayside Subdivision, it stretched along the shore of Trinity Bay from Double Bayou in Oak Island north for several miles.
When Hall first arrived in Anahuac and wanted to fish in Trinity and Galveston bays, he would travel to Oak Island and rent a small skiff with a live well and a set of oars from Captain Eddie Johnson. Captain Eddie would tow a string of skiffs behind his shrimp boat to the reefs, let the fishermen climb into their rented boats, and supply bait for their live wells. The fishermen would anchor and fish while Captain Eddie checked on them periodically before towing them back to his camp on Double Bayou.
Hall saw the potential in the Bayside Subdivision area. He began purchasing the undeveloped lots, redividing them into smaller parcels, and selling them for weekend or summer homes. With these properties, owners could launch their own boats and fish the bays without relying on rentals.
Over time, Hall created 11 subdivisions in the region. After his passing, Bobby Hall discovered a small black binder in which his father had recorded the details of each subdivision project. One entry described a block in the Bayside Subdivision, the number of lots, the buyers, and the sale prices. What stood out most was Hall’s note: “the cost per lot was 55 cents.” As Bobby explained, that’s how his father educated three children and sent them to college—without student loans.
One of the developments, Double Bayou Estates on Eagle Road, was carved out of an old rice field. Noticing the lack of trees, Hall purchased 400 Chinese tallow trees from a Liberty nursery and had them planted, with a guarantee they would live. Bobby noted with humor that this is part of the reason Chambers County now has so many tallow trees.
Hall surveyed the lots and roads himself, then hired Edgar Haynes to build the roads. Bobby recalled helping as a boy by signing delivery tickets when oyster shell was brought in for the roadbeds, keeping a copy for his father and giving one to the driver. Several of those drivers, he remembered, were the Fancher brothers and the King brothers.
Surveying in Southeast Texas
After earning his Licensed State Land Surveyor’s License, Robert Loring Hall, Sr. expanded his work beyond abstracting and became active in land surveying throughout Southeast Texas. Among his earliest projects was a survey he prepared for his mother in Van Zandt County. He also worked alongside W.O. Work, and together they completed several surveys. Hall handled all of the surveying for the subdivisions he created in Anahuac and Oak Island.
On one occasion, Kyle White approached Hall for help with surveying and dividing multiple sections of land in southeast Chambers County—parcels located near Hebert Road, Whites Ranch Road, and east of Highway 124. White had originally hired W.O. Work, but illness prevented him from doing the job. White convinced Hall and engineer Donnie Syphrett to take it on. This was during and shortly after World War II, when iron pipe and rods were scarce. Hall located a plumber with an overstock of 2-inch cast iron pipe and used it to mark the corners. Bobby Hall noted that, during his own surveying career, he came across many of those same cast iron markers.
After completing that project, Hall was asked to divide White properties west of High Island and south of the Intracoastal Canal. Bobby recalled helping on some of these surveys—mainly serving as the “pack mule” to carry equipment. This was long before GPS, and Hall surveyed using VARAS, the traditional Texas measurement of 33 1/3 inches per vara. He purchased a 100-vara tape—277.78 feet long—for use in the marshy terrain. Initially, the work was close enough to Old Highway 87 for the crew to walk in from the road. Later, as they moved toward the Intracoastal Canal, the Whites arranged for a marsh buggy from the Pipkins family in Jefferson County.
On one occasion, the buggy broke down while the crew was working near the canal. Knowing several members couldn’t manage the three-mile hike through marshland to the highway, Hall sent his younger crew members to make that walk while he and others took a longer six-to-seven-mile route along the canal bank to Highway 124. With no portable phones or radios, the family in Anahuac was left wondering where he was until the crew returned after dark.
Hall later partnered with Dave Limerick to form Hall and Limerick Surveyors. Bobby spent every summer from 1953 to 1961 surveying for that firm and its successor, Hall, Limerick & McCulley Surveyors. Hall’s name appeared on countless surveys for property owners across Southeast Texas.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chambers County’s once-thriving oil industry was in decline. New industrial growth was beginning on the west side of the county, and Hall—combining his expertise as an abstractor, land surveyor, and realtor—was called upon to assist. He played a role in developing storage facilities at Barber’s Hill, helped Houston Lighting & Power Company acquire land for its electrical generating facilities, and handled title work for U.S. Steel’s purchase of 13,000 acres that later became part of the Cedar Port Industrial Complex. He remained active in these projects until his retirement in 1978.
Hall was also an avid reader, favoring newspapers over television except when he needed help falling asleep. He read three papers daily, including the comics and the obituaries. When Hewlett-Packard released its first reverse-polarity calculator, Hall bought one for around $400—a device that would cost less than $50 today. Although he was no longer surveying, the technology fascinated him. He wrote surveying programs for the calculators and shared them with fellow surveyors. Bobby recalled that when he and a partner bought an HP computer for survey calculations—with its small 3-by-3-inch screen and magnetic program cards—his father had to have one as well. Hall soon discovered an error in HP’s required-area program, corrected it, and sent the fix to the company.
Faith was central to Hall’s life. A devoted member of the First Methodist Church of Anahuac, he taught the men’s Sunday School class for years and was steadfast in attendance, service, and giving. He ensured that Bobby, his sister, and his brother were active in the church as well. Bobby remembered being about 12 or 13 when he told his father after Sunday School that he wanted to go home. His father’s reply was, “Son, if everyone that attended Sunday School went home after Sunday School, would there be anyone at the regular service?” When Bobby answered, “No, sir,” his father said, “Go find a seat and I will see you after the service.” Bobby never asked again.
Though Hall was the steady hand in business and faith, Bobby noted that he was not the most social person in the family. That role belonged to the real “rock” of the family—his wife, Myrtis. An East Texas native, Myrtis had been attending business school in Longview when Hall brought her to Anahuac. While her husband worked at various abstract companies, she kept the household running, ensuring there was always food on the table and clothes ready for Sunday church. Every Saturday, she polished the shoes her children would wear the next day. She was active in church life and made sure the children were always in attendance.
Once the children were in school, Myrtis would go to the courthouse after drop-off to type from the records the documents needed for abstracts. She never received a salary for the work, but Hall often said she was his “most expensive employee.” She also handled all household finances. Early in their marriage, the couple shared one bank account, but Hall eventually gave her a separate account after discovering her habit of rounding up amounts in the checkbook register—turning $2.78 into $3.00. From then on, she managed her own account with great skill, and that arrangement lasted for the rest of their lives.
A legacy of faith and love
Robert Loring Hall, Sr. and his wife, Myrtis, both passed away at the age of 67—Myrtis from cancer, and Hall, as Bobby described, from a broken heart. Throughout her battle with cancer and the rigors of chemotherapy, Myrtis remained a constant lady, steady in grace and spirit.
The couple had three children: Robert Loring “Bobby” Hall, Jr.; Grace Marie Hall Guillot; and James Horace “Jimmy” Hall. Bobby followed in his father’s footsteps, earning an engineering degree and becoming both an engineer and a land surveyor. He also performs abstract work for surveyors and individuals. Grace worked for her father at the abstract company before marrying Roland Guillot and moving to Orange, Texas, where she joined a title company. On one occasion, when the staff member who usually went to the Orange County Courthouse to prepare “take-offs” was on vacation, Grace was sent in her place. She returned in a remarkably short time, prompting her coworkers to ask how she had finished so quickly. Her reply was simple: “My dad taught me well.” Grace later worked as a paralegal for a law firm in Beaumont. Jimmy built a successful career in real estate and insurance.
Bobby credited their parents for each child’s success, noting the work ethic that was instilled in them from an early age—and how they, in turn, have passed those values to their own children, Hall’s grandchildren.
Through every chapter of their lives, the lessons learned from their parents have endured. Most important of all, Bobby said, was the example they set in their love for God.