Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/234

206 of chancery, just organized, and was also for sev- eral years a judge of the supreme court of the province. In the quarrels that arose between the assembly and William Penn he sided with the latter, and is recognized as the leader that did most to preserve Quaker and proprietary ascend- ency. Penn made him a trustee under his will.

HILL, Theophilus Hunter, poet, b. near Ra- leigh, N. C, 31 Oct., 1836. After receiving an aca- demic education he became a lawyer in Raleigh, where he at one time edited the " Spirit of the Age." In 1871-'2 he was librarian of North Carolina. He has published " Hesper and other Poems " (Ra- leigh. 1861) ; " Poems h (New York, 1869) ; and " Pas- sion Flower and other Poems " (Raleigh, 1883).

HILL, Thomas, president of Harvard college, b. in New Brunswick, N. J., 7 Jan., 1818; d. in Wal- tham, Mass., 21 Nov., 1891. His father served as judge of the superior court of common pleas. The son was left an orphan at an early age, and was ap- prenticed to a printer in 1830 for three years. lie then went to the Lower Dublin academy near Philadelphia for one year, and was apprenticed to an apothecary in New Brunswick, but afterward entered Harvard, where he was graduated in 1843, and at the divinity-school in 1845. He settled in Waltham, Mass., in 1845, in charge of a Unitarian congregation, and preached there for fourteen years. In 1859 he succeeded Horace Mann in the presidency of Antioch college, Ohio, and during his service there was also pastor of the Church of the Redeemer in Cincinnati. He became presi- dent of Harvard in 1862, and held this office until 1868, when he resigned on account of impaired health. He retired to Waltham, and in 1871 he served in the legislature, after which he accom- panied Louis Agassiz on the coast-survey expedi- tion to South America. On his return he accepted a call to the Unitarian church in Portland, Me., and removed there. His mathematical genius showed itself early in life, and he has displayed great originality and fertility in the investigation of curves, adding to their known number and simpli- fying their expression. He has invented several mathematical machines, the principal one being an occultator, by which occultations visible west of the Mississippi in the years 1865-'9 were calcu- lated for publication in the "American Nautical Almanac." The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Harvard in 1860, and that of LL. D. by Yale in 1863. He has delivered addresses be- fore the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard on " Liberal Education " (1858), and on the " Opportu- nities of Life" at Antioch (1860). He has edited Eberty's " The Stars and the Earth " (1849 ; new eds.. Boston, 1874 and 1882) ; and has published " Christmas, and Poems on Slavery " (Boston, 1843); "Geometry and Faith" (New York, 1849; revised eds., New York, 1874, and Boston, 1882) ; " First Lessons in Geometry " (Boston, 1854) ; " Second Book in Geometry " (Boston, 1862) : " Jesus, the Interpreter of Nature, and Other Sermons " (1859) ; "Practical Arithmetic " (1881) ; and contributions to numerous periodicals, mathematical and astro- nomical journals, and religious newspapers. — His son, Henry Barker, chemist, b. in Waltham, Mass., 27 April, 1849, was graduated at Harvard in 1869, after which he studied chemistry at the University of Berlin, Prussia. In 1870 he was appointed assistant in the laboratory of Harvard, and was assistant professor of chemistry from 1874 till 1884, when he became full professor. He is a member of scientific societies, both in the United States and Europe, and in 1883 was elected to the National academy of sciences. Prof. Hill has published the results of his chemical researches in the "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," and is the author of " Notes- on Qualitative Analysis " (New York, 1874).

HILL, Thomas, artist, b. in Birmingham, Eng- land, 11 Sept., 1829. He came to the United States. in 1840, and settled in Taunton, Mass. His earliest paintings were made in Boston, where he followed the profession of ornamental painting until 1853, when he removed to Philadelphia, where he stud- ied in the life-class at the academy. In 1861 he- went to California in impaired health, and painted portraits, also occasional figure-pieces. One of the latter, the trial scene in the " Merchant of Venice,"" gained for him the first prize in the Art union of San Francisco in 1865. During 1866 he studied art in Paris for six months under Paul Meyerheim,. and thenceforth determined to follow landscape- instead of figure painting. He opened a studio in Boston in 1867, but returned soon to San Fran- cisco, where he now resides (1887), although spend- ing a portion of each year in the Yosemite valley and at his studio in Mariposa county. His prin- cipal works are "The Yosemite Valley" (1867); " The White Mountain Notch," " Donner Lake,"" " The Great Cafion of the Sierras," " The Heart of the Sierras," "The Driving of the Last Spike,"" and " The Yellowstone Canon."

HILL, Uriah C., musician, b. in New York- city about 1802 ; d. in Paterson, N. J., in Sep- tember, 1875. In early life he played the violin in different bands in New York. Having been en- gaged as leader of the Sacred music society, he- brought out Handel's " Messiah " in St. Paul's- chapel, 18 Nov., 1831. This was the first per- formance of an entire oratorio in New York. The "Messiah " was repeated on 31 Jan. and 2 Feb., 1832. With the same society he brought out Neu- komm's " David " and Mendelssohn's " St. Paul."" Meanwhile, in 1836, he had been abroad studying the violin under Spohr at Cassel. In 1842 he began energetically to form an orchestral society in New York. He enlisted several musicians in the pro- ject, and with others called a meeting for 2 April,. 1842, when the New York philharmonic society was formed. Hill was one of its alternate con- ductors during its first seven seasons. He in- vented a piano in which he substituted tuning- forks for wire strings, and which he claimed would never get out of tune. He exhibited it, but with- out success, in New York and London. Later he passed several years in Cincinnati, and afterward removed to Paterson, N. J. Through unfortunate domestic relations and bad speculations he became- financially embarrassed and despondent, and committed suicide. — His brother, George Handel, b. in Boston, Mass., 9 Oct., 1809 ; d. in Saratoga, N. Y., 27 Sept., 1849, was educated in Taunton, Ma.*., and at the age of sixteen found employment with a watchmaker and jeweller in New York city. He occasionally volunteered as a supernumerary in the Chatham street theatre, joined a travelling company of comedians, gave entertainments as a flute-player, comic singer, and story-teller, and subsequently as a lecturer. His earliest engagement as a stock actor was at the Arch street theatre, Philadelphia. In 1828 Hill married, and for a year or two kept a country store in Leroy, N. Y. But being unsuccessful he joined the company in the Albany theatre, and then lectured in the middle and southern states. The small Yankee part in Samuel Wood worth's drama of " The Forest Rose " arrested his attention, and determined him to make that specialty his particular study. He appeared in this play for the first time at the Arch street.