James Hall, an easterner of literary lineage, turned to the Ohio Valley of the 1830s for adventure, fortune, and subject matter. As editor of several publications in Illinois, he made his most lasting journalistic contribution through his promotion of western writing as editor of the Western Monthly Magazine, a successful literary periodical published in Cincinnati from January 1833 through June 1837.

The son of John and Sarah Ewing Hall, James Hall was born in Philadelphia in 1793. The family Bible and the records of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia say he was born on 29 July, although the autobiography he sent Evert A. Duyckinck for his Cyclopedia of American Literature and Hall's tombstone give his birth date as 19 August. His father was the son of a Maryland planter. His mother came from a family distinguished in both literature and education. Her father, James Ewing, a Princeton graduate, had become the first...