Halling, Solomon

ca. 1754–24 Dec. 1813

Solomon Halling, physician-surgeon, teacher, and Episcopal clergyman, was a native of Pennsylvania; he was said to have been "bred in medicine." He served as surgeon of the Fourth North Carolina Regiment from 1779 to the end of the Revolutionary War in the commands of General John Ashe and General Benjamin Lincoln. About 1784 he went to New Bern, N.C., to teach in the academy and to practice as a physician and druggist. Halling assisted in the services at Christ Church. He also became an active member of St. John's Masonic Lodge from 11 June 1789, delivering St. John's Day and other addresses, and serving on a lodge committee on the occasion of President Washington's visit to New Bern in 1791; later he was successively elected as Orator, Worshipful Master, and Chaplain of the Lodge.

In the 1790 census, Halling was listed as the head of the household with three females and five enslaved people. He and his wife Eunice were witnesses to the will of Mary Oliver in 1794. Mrs. Halling died in 1796; their daughter, Francina Greenway, married James Usher in 1807. His second wife, Sarah, died in Georgetown, S.C., on 27 Feb. 1810.

Recommended for Holy Orders by the standing committee of the Episcopal church after the 1790 meeting in Tarboro, Halling was ordained by Bishop James Madison of Virginia in 1792 and became rector of Christ Church, New Bern, succeeding the Reverend Dr. Leonard Cutting. He took part in the continuing efforts to organize a diocese in North Carolina, attending the 1793 and 1794 meetings at Tarboro, at which he served on the committees to draw up a constitution and a form of recommendation of Bishop-elect Charles Pettigrew; he was elected a member of the standing committee and a delegate to the General Convention. In 1796, Halling accepted a call to be rector of St. James's Church, Wilmington, and principal of the Wilmington Academy. From Wilmington he went to Georgetown, S.C., where he was rector of the Parish of Prince George Winyah (1809–13) and participated in the work of the diocesan convention, including the election of South Carolina's second bishop, the Right Reverend Theodore Dehon, who later preached Halling's funeral sermon.