J. Dan Hull, II, 1933. Above is his Yale Ph.D picture. Class act. American dream overachiever and gentlemen’s gentlemen. Authentic and honest–and never went out of his way to trumpet either trait. My Grandpop.
First Hull in Virginia-Missouri line to even go to college. His dad self-educated John Hull (JDH I) made his first stake as a laborer building railroads out West and ended up owning a drug store and a bank in Mountain Grove, Missouri. Grandpop, who fought with his own dad a lot (as I did with mine), entered University of Missouri at 16 years old and and got his Masters degree from University of Chicago at age 20. Grandpop’s family were relative newcomers to the colonies compared to my Mom’s side of the family, who got to Massachusetts in 1634. Born in Mountain Grove, Missouri, he ended his career as a player in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, author (including co-authoring the standard text for many years on secondary American education), Renaissance man and member of the Cosmos Club, the merit-based club for D.C.’s intellectual elite.
Grandpop’s great-great-great grandfather came to America as a teen with his own father from Germany and landed Middlebrook, Virginia in about 1750. Three generations later, in 1858, just before the Civil War, another earlier Dan Hull, a miller and farmer, moved his large family from Virginia to Missouri in a what sounds like an ingenious “tricked-out” family carriage reputedly-handy old Dan had built especially for the trip. Old Dan drove the carriage. A wagon hitched to a four-horse team driven by a Bill Argenbright hauled the family goods. The journey to Missouri took 2 months, with then teenage Bill Hull–my great-great grandfather–serving on horseback as scout and advance man for supplies and campsites. Old Dan’s other two sons, also on saddle horse, helped guide the trip. Just before making the trip, the family freed the slaves (at least 3) they had. They rested once a week to do washing, rest and attend church if possible. Old Dan’s wife, who I’ll write about some other time, was a devout Lutheran, as were all the 100 years of German-descended kin they were leaving back in Middlebrook, Virginia.