William R. Stall

William R. Stall was born in 1843 in Wayne County, New York, possibly the son of John W. (1801-1890) and Hannah (b. 1799).

William’s parents were both born in New York and presumably married there. By 1850 William was attending school with his younger brother Myron and living with his family in Sodus, Wayne County, New York, where his father worked as a common laborer. William left New York and eventually settled in Michigan. He may have been living in Cooper, Kalamazoo County or Courtland, Kent County, in 1860.

In any case, he stood 5’5” with blue eyes, auburn hair and a light complexion and was probably living in Lansing in the early Spring of 1861 when he became a member of the Lansing company called the “Williams’ Rifles,” whose members would serve as the nucleus of Company G. He was 18 years old and probably living in Lansing or Ingham County when he enlisted in Company G on May 10, 1861. By June of 1862 he was reported sick in the Regimental hospital.

William eventually recovered, and returned to duty. He reenlisted on December 24, 1863, at Brandy Station, Virginia, crediting Lansing First Ward, was presumably absent on veteran’s furlough in January of 1864 and probably returned to the Regiment on or about the first of February. He was reported at Division headquarters from February of 1864 through April, on detached service in May, and still on detached service at headquarters when he was transferred as a Sergeant to Company F, Fifth Michigan infantry upon consolidation of the Third and Fifth Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864. He remained on detached service at headquarters through October, was absent with leave in February of 1865, and mustered out on July 5, 1865, at Jeffersonville, Indiana.

William eventually returned to Michigan after the war.

He married New York native Susan or Susannah B. (b 1842), and they had at least five children: George W. (b. 1867), Fred J. (b. 1869, Nelson (b. 1869), Wilson (b. 1870) and Irwin (b. 1879).

By 1870 he was working in a saw mill in Hubbardton, Lebanon Township, Clinton County. (His brother Myron may have lived briefly in Cheboygan, Michigan, in about 1870 before moving on to Iowa.) By 1880 William was working as a farmer and living with his wife and children in Wheatfield, Ingham County; two houses away lived the family of Myron Pollock, who may have been related to William Pollock who had also served from Wheatfield in Company G of the Old Third during the war.

By 1886 William was living in Waukon, Iowa, in 1888 in Carlisle, Arkansas (when he testified in the pension application of John Cutler) and in Vernon, Texas in 1890. He eventually settled in Newport News, Virginia, where he was living when he was admitted to the Central Branch, National Military Home in Dayton, Ohio. His wife also moved to Dayton and by 1906 was living on Gettysburg Avenue in Dayton.

In 1885 he applied for and received a pension (no. 414875).

William died of cancer of the stomach on September 1, 1906, and was buried in the Dayton National Cemetery: section P, row 23, grave no. 40.

Shortly after William died Susannah applied for and received a widow’s pension (no. 627444).