The Assembly then proceeded to the election of Moderator, which resulted in the choice of Rev. J. B. Hail, D.D., returned Missionary from Japan, a member of Pennsylvania Presbytery, in the Synod of Pennsylvania.
[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1905, page 19]

John Baxter Hail was born on October 1, 1846, at Macomb, Illinois, being a younger brother of Alexander Durham Hail, who passed away in 1923. Dr. Hail was educated at Waynesburgh College, graduating therefrom in 1870, and later taking his Theological course at Western Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh. From Waynesburgh College he received the degrees of M.A. and D.D. In 1875 he married Mary Elizabeth Rohrer, and together with her arrived in Japan in January 1877, commissioned by the Cumberland Presbyterian Board.

For fifteen years he labored continuously in Osaka, going home for his first furlough in 1892. On his return to Japan in 1894, he was stationed in the city of Wakayama, where he remained till his death on December 20, 1928, Mrs. Hail having preceded him in the previous year. "He was for half a century an Evangelist in the metropolis of Osaka and in the city of Wakayama, the first Presbyterian worker in Central Japan."

[Source: The Christian Movement in Japan, Korea, and Formosa, 1924, pages 236-237]

[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., 1929, page 559]