In Memory

of

Charles L. Weidenger

Aug. 19, 1932 - July 30, 2006

BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN BENJAMIN HILL

John Benjamin HILL was born on 5 November 1786 at Carroll’s Manor in Frederick County, Maryland. He was the son of Benjamin Shaugh HILL and Sarah SCAGGS HILL. He was christened on 2 September 1787 with Mr. John BALFIELD acting as sponsor. Early Ross County Land Records showed that Mr. BALFIELD owned land in the area as early as 1780. This was likely a post-Revolution land grant for wartime service.

John B. HILL had five family siblings, the last of which was a sister named Dorcas. Following her birth in 1793, Sarah SCAGGS HILL died. To make a long story short, Benjamin S. HILL married Sarah’s widowed sister, Elizabeth SCAGGS COMPTON on 30 September 1806, and in the spring of 1807, brought his entire family and unknown others down Zane’s Trace by land and river boat to the area of Chillicothe, Ohio.

On 13 July 1809, John B. HILL married Kitturiah VOADLY, a Ross County resident. In 1822, he resettled onto a farm a few miles southeast of the village of New Holland in Pickaway County. By 1828, six children had been born to them. William HILL, born in 1810, died in the service of the US Army in 1843. Sarah A. HILL, born in 1812, is unknown. Samuel HILL was born in 1818, and is the subject of a separate biography. Mahala HILL was born in 1821, was the second wife of John EVANS, and died young in 1846. Elizabeth HILL, born in 1822, married John Penniwell, and died in 1879. John Fletcher HILL, born in 1828, served with distinction and a serious wound during the Civil War, died in Kansas in 1899, and was buried at the Mount Union Federal Cemetery near Chillicothe.

John B. Hill, who received at least an average education, taught school in and near New Holland. The author has the original of a certificate of qualification in his name signed by Joseph Olds and M. Brauley, Examiners of Pickaway County Schools, dated 29 November 1830. This penchant for teaching basic spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic carried forward in the HILL family for at least four generations. My grandmother, Kitturiah HILL, was the last of her line to be a career school teacher.

John Benjamin HILL died on his New Holland farm on 13 September 1842, and was buried at the old Cedar Grove (Grimes) Cemetery. His wife Kitturiah died on 23 November 1855, and was buried beside her husband. This ancient and picturesque location remains viewable today on the Judas Road east off the Egypt Pike south of New Holland. I personally viewed both John and Kitturiah HILL’s grave stones in 1994.