My great grandfather, Henry Whitehall, was the 4th son born to a farmer and midwife by the name of Barkley and Jennie Whitehall, who came to Waterville from Scranton, Iowa in 1896 by covered wagon. They left Iowa in April and arrived in Waterville in August fallowing the Oregon Trails most of the way laid out by settlers.
Henry was born in Waterville in May 1898. The same year Barkley bought 160 acres of farm. Barkley farmed this place along with some leased land for 13 years then sold the land in 1911 for $12,000. Barkley took the proceeds of this sale and moved the family about 13 miles east of Waterville and 4 miles south of Farmer where he bought another and bigger farm. They had a few good years of farming and the family prospered.
In 1923, there was a crop failure and the Federal Land Bank foreclosed on Barkley. By this time all of the family had grown and left home except for Henry and his younger sister, Etta. Henry had married in 1917 to Ms. Bessie Niles and was doing all the farm work himself. The family continued on this farm, leasing it from the Federal Land Bank. My great-great grandfather Barkley passed away in 1931 and was buried in the family plot in Waterville, WA about 30 miles from Whitehall RD.
Since the Federal Land Bank was a loan corporation rather than a land management company, they were constantly trying to get Henry to take out another mortgage and buy the farm. Henry, however, had become totally disillusioned with the place due to further crop failures in the early 1930s and did not want to take any chances with a mortgage. By 1937 crops began to improve and the Bank was really starting to put pressure on Henry to buy the land. Henry, feeling the pressure, lost his temper and told the bank representative he would not give him $5 per acre for the place. The bank rep also got angry, got in his car and left, drove a couple of miles up the road, saw Fred Besel, also a farmer working out in his field and walked out and talked to him, and sold him the place for $5 per acre. The next day, Henry was driving up to Farmer to get his mail at the little post office there, when Fred Besel flagged him down and told him he had bought the place. Blaine, my grandfather, who was 11 years old at the time, always claimed to the family that Henry put a cigarette in his mouth and bit an inch and a half off the end of it. Well, of course Henry had to find a place for his family of 4 children and his mother, Jennie, who lived with us. He located a farm for lease about 4 miles east of the "Whitehall Road" and we moved over there. In a very short period of time, Henry, who had a "little man complex", had a falling out with the owner and in less than a 2 years they were looking for another place to work and live. That is when Henry moved onto the farm on the "Whitehall Road" which was located 2 and a quarter miles south of U.S. Highway #2. By 1943, Henry found that this place would not produce enough income to adequately support his family and they moved again to what is presently known as Leahy Junction on State Highway #17, approximately 17 miles east of Bridgeport and 21 miles west of Grand Coulee Dam. At this location he farmed about 900 acres of wheat land and ran about 75 head of cattle. After Henry retired in 1955 he moved to Bridgeport where he passed away in January 1967 at the age of 68. He is buried in Waterville beside his wife and two sons, Blaine and Kenneth.
However, there was some dispute over who Whitehall Road is named after. Ervin Whitehall took over the farm there when Henry moved to Leahy. Ervin lived there for about 5 years and claimed the road was named after him. Glen Whitehall who worked for the Douglas County Engineers Office at the time and claimed the Road was not named after Ervin but was in fact named after Henry who was an Uncle to both Glen and Ervin.
My grandfathers, Blaine; great-grandfather, Henry; great-great-grandfather, Barkley and great-great-great-grandfather, James, are all buried in Waterville at the town’s cemetery.
My father is now a retired United States Marine and resides in Spokane. Unfortunately, my father had two girls and was the last of his blood line. I still carry my surname and was blessed with a son in 1992. It was not a difficult decision for me to proudly give my son my sur-name of Whitehall to carry on for future gernerations.
Please feel free to take pictures and post them on the site, you may get to see a beautiful sunset.