Halls Crossroads was founded and remains populated by descendants of Thomas Hall, who got a Revolutionary War land grant for the area north of Black Oak Ridge. He and wife Nancy had 11 kids.
Read Beth Kinnane’s story about the Hall family cemetery here.
David Hollis “Catfish” Hall, 84, was a direct descendant of Thomas Hall’s son Edmond. Dave Hall passed away peacefully at home in Halls Crossroads on December 3, 2022. Doris Smith of the Halls Crossroads Women’s League said Dave and his band played at every chow-down fundraiser that the league hosted since 2015.
After the Halls Business & Professional Association and the women’s league joined to preserve the Thomas Hall family cemetery on Rifle Range Road off Maynardville Pike, Catfish Dave volunteered to mow and maintain it, along with other Hall descendants.
Dave “Catfish” Hall (center) and his band play for a chow-down sponsored by the Halls Crossroads Women’s League. (Photo provided by Doris Smith)
The best part of operating the Halls Shopper newspaper was the stream of interesting friends and visitors who just dropped in to tell us something. It was a throwback to an earlier time.
One day a lanky man with twinkly eyes stopped to tell me and Jake Mabe about a bunch of fish in Fountain City Lake. “They just turned up,” he said, “and if you would write a story, the kids would know they are there.”
Going from memory here, but Jake wondered how those fish got in the lake. Catfish Dave said something like, “If a person put them there, and I’m not saying someone did, then they could never say they had done it.”
Jake handled the Catfish Dave beat from there on out.
Dave Hall liked to fish and he wanted others who might not have access to a boat or Norris Lake to enjoy it too.
His obituary reads: “David was a Knoxville native and a graduate of Fulton High School in 1956. He resided many years in Harvey, Illinois, where he rose to the rank of fire captain before his retirement in 1988. He returned to his hometown upon retirement, where he played music and fished for the next 34 years. He played guitar, banjo and piano and regularly performed at the Boys’ Club, Escapees RV Park, Lenoir Museum, Rickard Ridge Barbeque and the South Knoxville Senior Center. He was an avid fisherman all his life and earned his nickname after catching a 42-pound catfish in Douglas Lake.”
The full obituary is here.
The family will receive friends Friday, December 9, 2022, from 4-7 p.m. at Rose Funeral Home, Broadway Chapel, followed by a service, music and eulogy performed by David’s friends. Burial will be Saturday, Dec. 10, 11 a.m. at Greenwood Cemetery with an open house to follow.
It’s too bad Dave Hall won’t be buried in the Thomas Hall family cemetery, but he’s not too far away. Just over the ridge in Fountain City near the lake where fish sometimes turn up on a warm summer day.