James Jefferson Davis Hall

James Jefferson Davis Hall, (1864-1951) sometimes known by supporters as "Dad Hall," was an American Episcopalian street preacher known for his large telephone ministry, which according to a Time article allowed him to preach directly to a record 140,000 people over 20 months.

Biography James Jefferson Davis Hall was born in 1864 in Greenville, Alabama during the American Civil War. His family was poor and he had ten siblings. His father James Woodward Hall served in Confederate Army as a physician. He rarely had shoes until he was eighteen, and at age 20 he quit farming to become a teacher. When he was 28 in 1892, he left his job again to enter the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. After graduating he preached in small Alabama towns and in 1904 was appointed Episcopal chaplain for two prison camps in Pratt City and Flattop outside Birmingham, Alabama. Hall became well known among evangelists and in 1908 was invited to Philadelphia to take charge of the Vine Street Galilee Mission. although some of them were prank calls.

He died in Manhattan at the age of 86 after a 2000 mile preaching tour.