My Genealogy Hound

DAVID HILL, a well-known and respected attorney of Northampton, was born in Perrinton, Monroe County, N.Y., on February 9, 1838. On the paternal side he is of English antecedents, his father, Robert Hill, having been born and bred in Yorkshire, England.

After arriving at maturity, Robert Hill left his Yorkshire home for America, going first to Canada, where he lived a few years, and where in 1829 he married Isabel McMitchell, who, born in the north of Ireland, was reared in Canada. He was a blacksmith, following that trade in Perrinton, N.Y., whither he removed soon after his marriage, until past middle life, also carrying on general farming on the homestead which he there purchased. Both he and his wife lived to an advanced age. He died in 1879, and she ten years later. They had a family of sixteen children, of whom four sons and four daughters grew to adult life. Of the four sons two have since died, namely: George H., a farmer in Wayne County, New York, who died at Palmyra, August 4, 1894, aged sixty-four years, leaving one son and one daughter; and Robert L., a farmer on the old homestead, died at the age of fifty-six years. One son besides the subject of this sketch is now living; namely, Nelson H. Hill, a farmer at Bushnell Basin, Monroe County, N.Y.

David Hill was reared on the home farm, and there obtained a practical experience in agriculture, not taking a permanent leave of farm life until about thirty years of age. He acquired a good education, leaving the district school when fifteen years old to attend the Lima Academy, and subsequently pursuing his studies at Fairfield Academy, in Herkimer County. This institution he left in 1862 to defend the old flag, volunteering as a private in the One Hundred and Twenty-first New York Volunteer Infantry. He was early promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. On his promotion his friends at home presented him with a sword, toward the purchase of which no one was allowed to contribute more than one dollar. This sword is one of Mr. Hill’s most cherished possessions. His war service, however, was mostly in the Army of the Potomac, as Captain of Company F, One Hundred and Fifty-second New York Volunteer Infantry, from which he was discharged a scarred veteran, he having received many wounds, though the only very serious one was the wound in his right hand, received at the battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864. After receiving his discharge, he returned to Fairfield Seminary, and completed his course there, and then entered Amherst College, Amherst, Mass., graduating in the semi-centennial class of 1871. In the fall of 1871 Mr. Hill came to Easthampton, accepting the position of a teacher in Williston Seminary, where he remained as one of the corps of instructors five years. While there he devoted his leisure to his professional studies, reading law with Judge Bassett, and entered the Boston University Law School in 1877. He graduated from there the following year, and was admitted to the bar in June, 1878. In 1882, having rested and travelled in the West for a year, Mr. Hill formed a copartnership with J. B. O’Donnell in Northampton, and has since then won an excellent reputation in his professional career and a large general law practice. Politically, he is an uncompromising Democrat, although he has not been conspicuous in official positions. For three years he served as chairman of the Board of Education in Easthampton, and for several years has been chairman of the parish committee of the Payson Congregational Church of that place.

Mr. Hill was married June 7, 1880, to Josephine Scott, of Perrinton, N.Y., a daughter of William Scott, deceased. They have five sons, as follows: David Arthur, born in 1880, who is in Williston Seminary; Anson Harris, born in 1883; Robert Scott, born in 1885; Francis Web, born in 1887; and Joseph Henry, a bright little lad, born in 1892. Should these sons, so favorably launched upon life’s journey, grow to stalwart men, with the physical, mental, and moral attainments of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hill will have served their day and generation well, and will have a family of which they may be justly proud.