Hall, Richard H.

Richard Harrison Hall (1824-1883) was a Vermonter who came to the California gold fields in 1849, but found Santa Cruz first when his ship landed here by mistake. Undeterred, Hall found his way to the gold country, but returned to Santa Cruz in 1863 and opened a butcher shop on Front Street. Prospering in that business, he bought 300 acres of land out on the Westside and established a dairy farm. The dairy apparently also did well, and in the late 1860s or early 70s he built a new home on the Soquel Avenue grade, just below what became the corner of Ocean View Avenue, and across the street from the original Branciforte School. The house was later moved around the corner, where it remains today. Hall’s lot on Soquel Avenue was sold to an up-and-coming young entrepreneur named Fred Swanton, who had married Hall’s foster daughter Emma Stanley Parshley. Hall's wife, a native of Bavaria, was born Margaret Schlicher.

• John L. Chase, The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture (4th ed. 2023): Chapter Seven, entry (12), page 203