Stroll around downtown Gloucester almost any day and you’re likely to run into Ellis Hall. The longtime Main Street businessman, who, along with his partner, the late W.F. Broaddus, developed Edgehill Shopping Center, is practically a Gloucester icon.

Even though officially retired, he said he is still up to his neck in the family business and is regularly on hand to oversee the ongoing renovations at the shopping center, now called Edgehill Town Center.

Hall, who turns 97 in May, didn’t start his career on Main Street. In the early years, he worked in the family sawmill business in the vicinity of the present-day Hayes Shopping Center. His father, the late Hansford A. Hall, owned the sawmill. It was located on property given to Hansford by his father, Lewis H. Hall, who broke up his large tract of land to leave a parcel to each of his 16 children.

The Halls were a Christian family, and Hall said his mother was a good manager. She taught him and his three brothers and ...