Frank H. Hall: Professor, Author, Inventor

Frank H. Hall

Frank H. Hall (Frank Haven Hall) was the Superintendent of West Aurora Schools when he was approached by a group of men from Sugar Grove about taking charge of a new school there. Thomas Judd, Henry Chapman, Silas Reynolds, Leonard Benjamin, and Lewis Gillette asked Frank Hall to take charge and teach in the school.   Thomas Judd had for some years favored the idea of an industrial school which would teach agriculture as well as preparatory to going on to other vocations.

Frank Hall agreed and his salary was to be $500 per year.

An all day picnic was held in the maple grove on the Judd Farm on Tuesday May 28, 1975, with the announced purpose of discussing plans for the new school. History records that 1,000 people attended and all were seated at a table of 168 feet long, and enjoyed a find meal. The dinner was followed by a program and speakers. One of the speakers was Professor Hall, and at the close of his speech, he called for donations.

It took just 15 minutes to collect $1,400.00, plus subscriptions that brought that total to $2,200.00. Subsequent subscriptions and the district tax, swelled the fund to $4,500.00. Mr. Judd donated the land where the apartment house now stands across from the Methodist Church. The school and a horse shed to accommodate 80 horses was build and the Sugar Grove Normal and Industrial School opened for classes in the fall of 1875. The average attendance for the first year was 100, of which about 25 were local students.

The curriculum at that time included Latin, General History, natural Philosophy, Grammar, Elements of Agricultural Science, Geometry, Bookkeeping, Arithmetic, English Literature and Music. A teaching certificate was one requirement of being awarded a Certificate of Graduation.

Frank Hall left Sugar Grove School in 1887, and later served as Superintendent of the Illinois Institution for the Blind at Jacksonville, Illinois. Among his accomplishments was the invention of the Braille typewriter, also called the Braillewriter or Brailler in 1892, and the stereotype-maker machine, both of which were widely used by the blind throughout the world.

Source: “Sin-Qua-Sip” Sugar Grove: A History of Sugar Grove Township, Kane County, Illinois” by Patsy Mighell Paxton.