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Burch Family Cemetery ~ Henry Washington Hill ~ part of the Polk County Pioneer Cemeteries of Oregon
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Hill, Henry Washington
LAST NAME: Hill FIRST NAME: Henry MIDDLE NAME: Washington NICKNAME: 
MAIDEN NAME:  AKA 1:  AKA 2:  AKA 3: 
GENDER: M TITLE: 
BORN: 20 Jan 1829 DIED: 17 Oct 1904 BURIED: 19 Oct 1904 ~ Burch Family Cemetery
OCCUPATION:  Farmer
BIRTH PLACE:  New York
DEATH PLACE: Independence, Polk Co., Oregon
NOTES: 
OSBH DC (Polk County 1904) #1287 - Henry Hill, male, farmer, married, b. 20 Jan 1824 in New York, d. 17 Oct 1904 in Independence, Oregon at the age of 80 y's, name of father Ladue Hill, maiden name of mother Eliza Aurelia Taylor, interment 19 Oct 1904.
MARRIAGE - "Mr. Henry Hill & Mrs. Martha Ann Virgil [Virgin], m 14 Jul 1851; Thomas J. Lovelady, pg 8."
1870 OR CENSUS - Henry Hill, age 41, occupation farmer, b. New York, is enumerated with Martha, age 37, b. Kentucky, along with Arrelia, age 14, b. Oregon, Reason, age 11, b. Oregon, and Nellie, age 2, b. Oregon. Also enumerated with the family are George Griswold, age 57, occupation carpenter, b. New York, and Robert Parrish, age 23, occupation saddler, b. Ohio.
1900 OR CENSUS - Henry Hill, age 71, occupation farmer, b. Jan 1829 in New York, is enumerated with his wife of 49 years, Martha A., age 65, mother of 9 children 4 of whom are living at the time of the census, b. Dec 1834 in Kentucky, along with son Ladew, age 41, widowed, occupation farmer, b. Nov 1858 in Oregon, son Homer V., age 29, single, occupation farmer, b. Sept 1870 in Oregon, son Verd, age 23, single, b. Jun 1876 in Oregon, daughter Garlin, age 18, b. Jun 1881 in Oregon, grandson Clyde, age 19, occupation woodchopper, b. Dec 1880 in Oregon, Wendell H. Denlinger, identified as grandson, age 1, b. Feb 1899 in Oregon, and Henry Denlinger Jr., identified as son-in-law, age 30, widowed, occupation attorney, b. Jan 1877 in Oregon. Also enumerated with the family are Theodore Thrasher, hired hand, age 21, single, occupation laborer, b. Jan 1879  in Missouri, and Fanny B. Martin, hired girl, age 22, single, occupation servant, b. Oct 1877 in New York.

BIOGRAPHICAL (Source - "The Hill Family", by Garlin Hill Cohrs via Warren Forsythe):
"Henry and Martha Ann Hill were pioneers of 1847.
Mr Hill was of English ancestry, his people being among the early settlers of the New England Colonies, his grandfather serving with the Connecticut regiment during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
The family later moved to Jefferson county, New York, where Mr Hill was born Janary 20, 1827. In 1830 the family again moved westward to Ohio, then to Illinois where Mr Hill resided until 1847 when he joined an emigrant train leaving St Joseph, MO for the Oregon country on April 4. At the beginning of the journey there were one hundred wagons in the train, but there was disagreement among the leaders and the train was divided into small companies.
While crossing the plains they experienced much annoyance from the great herds of buffalo, not only on account of the danger of being trampled under foot during a stampede, but the oxen were often frightened and it was difficult to manage them and keep them from running away.
The Indians also gave considerable trouble, stampeding the stock at night, requiring the emigrants to take up their pursuit. But because of the Indians still using the bow and arrow and the white man the gun, the emigrants succeeded each time in recapturing their cattle.
After seven months of the long and arduous journey Mr Hill arrived at the place where Independence now stands, November 14.
At first he settled on a place two miles north of his present Donation Land Claim, but later traded it for a Cayuse poney and staked off a claim on the west bank of the Willamette and south of Ash creek, beginning at the junction of the creek with the river and pacing off a mile square, driving stakes at the corners and marking trees to designate the bounds.
Then when the rumors came to the Willamette in the spring of 1848 of Marshal's find of gold in California, Mr. Hill walked to Portland and there took a canoe to Astoria. Here he found other men anxious to go to the gold fields. So together they rigged up an old schooner, "The Starling," which had been stranded at the mouth of the Columbia. It wasn't at all seaworthy, waterlogged and cracked and the general feeling aboard was that if they ever made port with it, no one would find them on the ocean again.
They managed to keep it afloat and reached San Francisco and from there they took passage up the river to where Sacramento now stands and from there walked to the mines at Hangtown. He mined there for twenty months, $30.00 being the value of the largest piece he found, and he and three other men on two different days took out $400 worth of gold. He left for San Francisco with $4300 in gold and this he invested in merchandise which he brought back and formed a partnership with Mr. Asa Burbank and Mr. Leonard Williams. Later he sold out but with a loss. In 1851 he decided to return to California and replenish his loss. This time he went to Yreka and there prospected some and engaged in herding horses. But the Indians were bad at that time, so he came back north to Jacksonville, Oregon. But he was not pleased with the prospect there, so he returned home.
On July 14, 1851, he was married to Martha Ann Virgin. Mrs. Hill was the daughter of Reason Virgin, a native of Pennsylvania and Clarinda Wammock of Virginia, their respective families having emmigrated to Greenup county, Kentucky, where they were married and Mrs. Hill was born December 18, 1834. In 1835 the family emigrated to Missouri where both parents died in 1846.
In the following year, Mrs. Hill, who was then a little girl of twelve, began the six months journey to Oregon with the family of Mr. West Burch and in the same emigrant train with her sister, Mrs. Nancy Goff, a younger sister, later Mrs. Tignal Kibbe, and a young brother, Seaton Virgin, who died soon after coming. Mrs. Hill attended school in the old Embree school on the Rickreall and also in a little log school house located near Oak Point, and Mrs. Burley, one of the women in the Whitman Massacre, was the teacher. She was not married until she was almost seventeen, which was nearing maiden age for girls in Oreogn at that time.
While Mr Hill had been absent in the mines, more settlers had been coming in and taking up land so there were only 540 acres remaining of his original claim. Liking the location he and Mrs Hill settled on it as their Donation Land Claim. Their first home was a log cabin built at about what is now Third and B Streets, Independence, Ore, and those large oak trees on the Whitaker property at that point were little bushes that Mrs Hill used in lieu of a clothesline. To the north of them across Ash creek on the DLC of Mr E. A. Thorpe was a store and the blacksmith shop of Mr Israel Hedge. This settlement was called Independence.
When in 1861 the high water inundated that part, the men who owned the store and others of the settlers, importuned Mr Hill to plat a town on his Donation Land Claim which was higher ground. So in 1867 he platted 40 acres. Mr. Hamilton McCully, Mr Isaac Van Duyne and Mr John Summerville built the first store which was located where the D. L. Williams store now stands. The first school was taught by Alonzo Genser in a little box building erected by Mr. William Tetherow on the site of the present Masonic Hall. But soon the building which is the E A Dunkel Apartments was built on the southeast lots of the present school block and Mr Genser was the first teacher in that building.
The first church built was by the Southern Methodists. It is still standing on its original site and is now used by the Catholic church.
In 1878 "The New Town" as it was called in the vernacular of that day, was incorporated and four years later in 1882 "The Old Town" was annexed to the corporation, the two towns forming one school district and building the school that is being razed at the present time.
Mr Hill's entire time and attention was given to the cultivation and improvement of his land, extending his holdings from time to time until he owned about 1000 acres at the time of his death. The greater part of this was devoted to general farming, although he engaged quite extensively in hop culture and stock raising.
He made but one trip to his old home in the east and that was in 1876 when with his oldest boy, then a boy of seventeen, they rode horesback to Winnamucky, Nevada, the nearest railroad station of the Union Pacific. There they boarded the train for the Centennial Expostition in Philadelphia and a visit to his parents in Illinois.
Nine children were born to Mr and Mrs Hill: Roseltha, who died at the age of nine; Mrs Aurelia Burch, who diedin 1880; LayDue R; Elizabeth and Lucy, both dying in infancy; Mrs Nelly May Denlinger who died in 1900; Homer, Verd and Mrs Garlin Cohrs.
Mr Hill died October 17, 1904, nearing his 78th year and Mrs Hill died December 26, 1915, having just passed her 81st birthday.
Their Donation Land Claim, not occupied by the town is still in the possession of each of their surviving children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Mr. Hill led a very inobtrusive life and although he took an active in terest in all local affairs, donating land for school, church, railway and other worthy purposes, he never aspired to official honors, preferring to devote such time as was not absorbed by his business, with his family to whom he was very much devoted."
DEATH CERTIFICATE: 
OSBH DC (Polk County 1904) #1287 - Henry Hill, male, farmer, married, b. 20 Jan 1824 in New York, d. 17 Oct 1904 in Independence, Oregon at the age of 80 y's, name of father Ladue Hill, maiden name of mother Eliza Aurelia Taylor, interment 19 Oct 1904.
OBITUARY: 
INSCRIPTION: 
Pioneers of 1847
Henry Hill
Jan. 20, 1829 - Oct. 17, 1904
(shares monument with Martha)
SOURCES: 
Branigar Survey
Saucy Survey & Photographs
OSBH DC (Polk County 1904) #1287
Polk County Oregon Marriage Records, 1849-1879, pg 3
1870 OR CENSUS (Polk Co., Monmouth, FA #359)
1900 OR CENSUS (Polk Co., Independence, ED 175, sheet 15B)
CONTACTS: 
ROW:   
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