Hill, George L.

Born: 1797-01-12 Caroline County, Virginia

Died: 1887-11-30 Clinton, Illinois

Born near Fredericksburg, Virginia, George L. Hill was a farmer, Baptist, temperance adherent, and, after the start of the Civil War, a Republican. After losing his father at age twelve, he and his mother relocated to Kentucky in 1815. He became the head of the household at age eighteen, and rented land in Fayette County from his future father-in-law. In October 1822, he married Louisa B. Hickman, with whom he eventually had eight children. He moved with his family to Henry County, Kentucky in 1827, where he gave up the consumption of alcohol and, a year later, joined the Baptist Church at New Castle, Kentucky. After touring Illinois on horseback in 1835, he purchased a 640-acre farm in Clinton, Illinois in 1836, and moved his family to the new home in October 1837. He traveled between Kentucky and Illinois roughly once a year for the next twelve years, settling his mother's affairs and selling his old farm in Kentucky. From 1839 to 1841, his home served as the site for the first Baptist Church of Clinton. In 1846, using his own timber and labor, he constructed the first Baptist church in Clinton. He attained a comfortable lifestyle through his life's work and was able to maintain it over time. By 1850, his real estate holdings were valued at $6,200, and, a decade later, his personal and real property were worth nearly $7,000.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), DeWitt County, IL, 433; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), DeWitt County, IL, 41; Clinton Register (IL), 9 December 1887, 3:4; Gravestone, Woodlawn Cemetery, Clinton, IL.