In his book Frá Austri til Vesturs (From East to West), Þorleifur Jóakimsson (Thorleif Jackson) says of Halldór:
“I am told that he intended to build a church on his land and therefore named his farm Kirkjuból. A cemetery was also built on the land, and those who died on the island from smallpox (the pimple), nearly 30 people, were buried there. (This refers to smallpox that persisted in New Iceland from the autumn of 1876 until the winter of 1877.) Halldór was a powerfully strong man with quick reflexes, especially when he was angry; that hardly any man could match him. He was a loving man; this was manifested in the fact that he could never see injustice shown to those who were weak and vulnerable; he did not tolerate violence being done to them, and therefore sometimes got into fights. Halldór was once working on a threshing crew in Dakota, and by then he was over sixty. An Icelandic boy was working with him and enjoyed teasing the domestic workers at night when they were lying on the hayloft in the barn, and once they were so angry with him that they probably showed up to lay hands on him. But Halldor told them to let him be. One of them answered him with the common English proverb: “Mind your own business” and hit Halldór, who then told him that he could strike again if he wanted, grabbed the man and lifted him up and dropped him headfirst from the hay loft; in the same way he threw down three or four others who wanted to avenge their comrade. The next morning they were in a bad mood and asked the foreman to fire this man. He said he would not do that, to fire the most diligent man.”
English version by Thor group.