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- From “History of Defiance County”, 1883
Harvey J. Hill was born April 5, 1818, in Orleans County, N. Y., and remained there until he was about sixteen years of age. From there he went to Pennsylvania with his parents, Thomas S. and Olive (Cole) Hill, at which place his mother died. His father died in New York. Mr. Hill then left Pennsylvania for Cleveland, Ohio, and from there came to Defiance County, arriving here in 1836. At the time of the building of the State dam across the Maumee at Independence, he assisted in getting out the timber, and helped to build the same, having had some experience in that kind of business, as he had previously' helped in the construction of a dam at Providence, in Wood County, Ohio. He settled on the farm on which he now resides, in Section 10, of Highland Township, in 1849, where he had previously made a clearing and erected a log cabin. Mr. Hill was married January 1, 1840, to Miss Jane Peterson, of Highland Township. To them were born six children, viz., Mary L., Harvey J., William L., David, Nancy D. and Hannah E. Of these, Mary L., Harvey J. and Hannah B. are dead. Mrs. Hill died January 27, 1852. Mr. Hill married, for his second wife. Miss Matilda Ann Smith; of this marriage, two daughters were born — Clara A. and Hattie F., both deceased. Those who survive of the first are all grown up, married, and live in Highland Township. Mr. Hill had two sons in the army of the late war, 1861-65. William L. was wounded in the left hand at the battle of Winchester, Va. Harvey J. enlisted in Company' B, Sixty-eighth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in October, 1861, and died in hospital, Rome, Ga., June 16, 1864. Mr. Hill's father was in the war of 1812. William L. married Libbie J. Moon. Their children are Clara J., James F., Ida, Charlotte, Henry and an infant son. At the time when Mr. Hill came to the township land was worth from 75 cents to $2.50 per acre. His neighbors were Samuel Case, Jacob Peterson, Henry Brechbill, Charles Gardner Ames, John JVI. Sanford, David Skiver, P. G. Hoeltzel, John Boucher, Jacob Kraft and Joshua Kaler Cramer. There were but few Indians here at the time Mr. Hill came to the township, they having taken their departure for their Western home in 1839. Mr. Hill speaks of an old Indian doctor by the name of Konkeyfoot, who remained here until his death in 1862. He was an herb doctor, and gave as his reason for staying, that it was the best section of country he had ever seen, to supply himself with his favorite herbs. He was quite successful in his practice, and especially in curing the bite of poisonous snakes, etc., and treated that loathsome disease, catarrh, very successfully, performing many permanent cures. He could read and write, and during his life-time distributed many of his receipts among his friends, which are yet used throughout the country with great success. He died at the Widow Egler's, on the Maumee. Mr.Hill does not claim any notoriety as a hunter, but thinks he killed the largest wildcat ever killed in this county, which measured about six feet in length. We have an account of one other killed by an old hunter and pioneer of Milford Township, J. J. Green, about the same time, its weight being eighty pounds, and its length Mr. Green gave us in this wise, that when held up so as to give its full length, was as long as he (Green) was tall, and Mr, Grcon is fully a six-sooter; but as we have not the weight of Mr. Hill's we are unable to say which was the " boss.''
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1818 - 1890 (72 years)
Thomas S Hill, b. 1790, Windsor, Berkshire, MA 