OWEN D. HILL
Owen D. Hill published the Lyman H. Johnson book at his request and expense.
Who is He? What's his connection. Mr. Johnson is mentioned near the bottom:
The History of West Virginia, Old and New, Published 1923,
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York,
Volume III, pg. 594-596.
OWEN DUFFY HILL. Owing to the breadth of interest and wide range
of accomplishments that has claimed his attention, and the fine
quality of talent he has displayed in his business and expressed
along literary and political lines, the subject of this sketch has
long since earned a place among the most gifted, as well as among
the most influential, far-seeing and successful business, political
and literary men of West Virginia.
Owen Duffy Hill was born at Kendalia, Kanawha County, West Virginia,
on June 18, 1865, a son of George W. and Rebecca Jane Kendall Hill.
Descending as he did from early pioneer ancestry, he was fortunate
in inheriting some of the strong individual characteristics that were
the common property of those hardy pioneers who conquered the
wilderness, builded themselves homes, developed the natural resources
and made an advanced civilization in a new country possible. His
grandfather, Dr. Moses Mann Hill with his brother John, came from
Culpeper County, Virginia, to what is now Nicholas County, West Virginia,
purchasing some forty thousand acres of land and settling at what is now
Belva at the juncture of Bell Creek and Twenty Mile Creek in said county.
His immediate grandfather on his mother's side, Joseph C. Kendall,
who was a millwright and pioneer Methodist minister of remarkable
oratorical ability and power, came from King George County, Virginia,
to what is now Kanawha County, West Virginia, and while building a mill
for Jacob Snyder near the mouth of Queen Shoal Creek on Elk River,
purchased thirty-nine thousand acres of land in what is known as the
Jacob Skyles survey, on Blue Creek and Falling Rock Creek near the
40,000 acres of land which had been purchased by the Hills.
Having been born and reared in the environment of these vast estates
it was natural for him to imbibe those principles of freedom, patriotism
and love of home, forest and country that go to make a strong and
intensive individual citizenship, and naturally develops one's character
along free and independent individual lines.
Naturally blessed by inheritance with those able mental and physical
characteristics which are common to the pioneer citizens of Virginia
and West Virginia, and to which many of the most prominent figures in
the nation's history can trace their ancestry, and a parentage which
had had all these advantages and the additional advantages of superior
education and environment, the subject of this sketch could not have
helped but attained at least some prominence in the world under these
naturally advantageous inherent environments.
Dr. Moses Mann Hill, the father of George W. Hill, who through the
Van Bibber family was a kinsman of Senator John Edward Kinna of
Wisconsin and the grandfather of O. D. Hill, married a daughter of
Mathias Van Bibber, of Holland Dutch ancestry, and a great granddaughter
of Captain John Van Bibber, who was an officer in the American Army,
also fought at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1874, and a co-pioneer
with Daniel Boone, and one of whose daughters married Daniel Boone's
brother Nathan and a few years later located as a pioneer settler in
what is now Nicholas County, West Virginia, emigrating from
Pennsylvania where he had been granted 50,000 acres of land near
Philadelphia in recognition of his services in the Revolutionary war,
and upon which he established a manor.
In the public exhibit in the Capitol Annex in the City of Charleston
can be found the spinning wheel which Captain Mathias Van Bibber's
mother brought from Holland, the metal buttons off of his military coat,
and also the old flint lock rifle of immense caliber that was owned by
Mathias Van Bibber, the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this s
ketch, and used by him to fight Indians and kill buffalo.
Rebecca Jane Kendall, wife of George W. Hill and mother of Owen D. Hill,
was a daughter of Joseph C. Kendall, who came from King George County,
Virginia, to Kanawha County, about 1840, and who purchased and settled
thirty-nine thousand acres of land in the vicinity of Kendalia, West
Virginia, which was named for him. Miss Kendall for a number of years
taught school at or near Maiden, West Virginia, gained quite a reputation
in her day as a portrait painter and artist, and was a woman of strong,
forceful character and exceptional business ability, and foresight. The
Kendall family are descendants of the Fitzgeralds, the Rowes and Randolphs
of Virginia, and direct descendants of Edward Kendall, who was postmaster
general in Washington's Cabinet. Joseph C. Kendall married a daughter of
Captain Edward Burgess, who came here at an early date, bringing 100
colored slaves with him, and who established a plant for the manufacture of
salt on Elk River, eight miles north of Charleston, built what is now known
as "Big Chimney" on Elk River, but upon drilling a salt well petroleum oil
flowed into the well to such an extent that he had to abandon the enterprise.
But the big chimney, then erected in connection with his operations, stands
upon the north bank of Elk River, near the post office of that name to this
day.
Owen Duffy Hill acquired his early political and literary inspiration,
patriotic principles, his broad ideas of business and citizenship from his
early training within his father's household, and his main business through
life, outside of his political, literary and educational labors, has been to
maintain, operate, manage and develop large tracts of timber and coal land.
At his home at Kendalia he owns large tracts of land, and in New Mexico and
South America, and operates lumber mills and farms, and also maintains a
home in Charleston for the educational advantages of his children. In 1907
he was appointed postmaster at Kendalia.
In 1906 he prepared an article which was published in the "Manufacturers'
Record" of Baltimore, Maryland, describing the natural resources of the
Kanawha, Elk, Blue Creek and Gauley River Valley and drew an outline and
planned the building of the Kanawha and West Virginia Railroad, which
attracted the attention of some capitalists at Scranton, Pennsylvania, who
later organized the Blue Creek Coal and Land Company and purchased 46,000
acres of coal and timber land in that vicinity, making the first purchase of
11,413 acres from Mr. Hill for which they paid $178,000, and built the
Kanawha and West Virginia Railroad from Charleston through this region, which
opened up and developed numerous coal, timber, oil and other enterprises along
this new road, and has been a constant source of improvement and development
to these vicinities.
Mr. Hill has not only been a farmer, but has worked in a coal mine, sold fruit
trees, taught school, leased oil and gas lands, sold Evangelist Sam Jones'
sermons, kept general store, organized Hill Brothers Lumber Company, organized
the Northwestern Manufacturing Company, and Clendenin State Bank, and in
1897, through the recommendation of Hon. Henry S. Graves, superintendent of
the Division of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Hill was appointed
by Messrs. Carter & Ledyard, lawyers of 44 Wall Street, New York City, to
estimate thirty-four thousand acres of timber land in Webster County, West
Virginia, owned by C. F. Pratt, vice-president of the Standard Oil Company.
In 1887, long before oil was discovered in Kanawha County, under the
recommendation of Col. A. E. Humphreys, now of Mexia, Texas, Mr. Hill was
appointed a notary public by Governor E. W. Wilson, of West Virginia, and
thereupon leased for Colonel Humphreys all the territory for oil and gas that
later developed into the Blue Creek oil fields.
From early manhood he took the same keen interest in political movements,
patriotic organizations and organizations for the betterment of farm life and
farm and educational work which characterized his father, and he probably has a
wider range of acquaintance and association with the older leaders of these
movements than any other man now living. He is probably the only man in the
United States that was personally acquainted with every man whom he ever voted
for for president but one.
When the Union Labor party met at Cincinnati for its national convention in 1887,
he attended as a Greenback delegate from West Virginia, taking the place of his
father, who had received an appointment and could not go. He was the youngest
member of that convention, and later was sent as a Union Labor delegate to the
convention which formed the people's party. Later he was nominated for state
superintendent of free schools by the Union Labor party in West Virginia, and in
1892 for the same office by the People's party, receiving each time a larger
number of votes than any other individual on the ticket. He also received the
votes of the Union Labor party in the West Virginia Legislature, and later of
the People's party for United States senator, being the youngest man ever
honored with votes for United States senator in West Virginia.
From the first he espoused the cause of the Greenback and the People's party,
and during its life acted in its counsels both in the state and in the nation,
and since there is now no political organization that represents his ideas of a
citizen's patriotic duty to his country he maintains a personal political
independence that does not allow him to vote and does not permit him to
affiliate with any of them, and did not allow him to take any part in the World
war. He says "No patriot was ever a partisan and no partisan was ever a patriot."
Mr. Hill is a man of strong individuality, high ideals and sterling character.
He is a hard student, a tireless worker and a man of pleasing personality. He
became widely known as secretary of the Farmers' National Congress through the
influence he wielded toward shaping its policies while connected with this
National Farm organization. His connection with that Congress dates from 1905
when the governor of West Virginia appointed him a delegate to the Richmond,
Virginia, meeting of said Congress, where he introduced and had passed a
resolution against the introduction of foreign immigrants in this country,
carrying the convention off its feet with an oratorical effort in support of
said resolution, which the Richmond press said "Set the Convention Wild," and
won the passage of the resolution over all opposition. At the session in
Oklahoma City in 1906 he was elected third assistant secretary of the Congress,
and as said assistant secretary introduced in the following reports the
biographical sketches of the various officers, and in 1908, at Raleigh, North
Carolina, was elected second assistant secretary, in 1909, first assistant
secretary, and in 1913, at Plano, Illinois was elected secretary, and was
reelected at Fort Worth, Texas, the next year, and served in that capacity for
four years.
The committee appointed by the Farmers' National Congress to report on the work
of the secretary, at the meeting at Fort Worth, Texas, in 1914, submitted to the
Congress the following report:
"Your Committee desires to compliment Secretary Hill on the able manner in which
he has met and handled the problems which confronted him in his official capacity.
He is a live wire, and has presented the Congress with an intelligent, clear-cut
annual report, supplemented by some wholesome suggestions which should claim the
attention of this body. We believe that Mr. Hill, by his ability, integrity and
efficiency, has met all the obligations of his office and has thereby won the
confidence and respect of every member of this organization."
His services, support and influence have been extended to a number of other
organizations. He was elected a member of the executive committee of the National
Irrigation Congress in 1911; a delegate to the Southern Commercial Congress in
1912; and at a meeting of the Farmers' National Congress held at Nashville,
Tennessee, was appointed to serve on the International Monetary Commission, which
was sent to Europe to investigate the Raiffaissen and other credit systems of
Germany and other countries, but on account of other pressing business engagements
declined to serve, Hon. Harvie Jordan, of Georgia, having been sent in his place.
In 1913 he was a delegate to the National Good Roads Congress at Detroit, Michigan.
He is a member of the American Breeders' Association, West Virginia Live Stock
Association, vice-president of the National Monetary League, member of the Anti-
trust League, member of the Advisory Committee of the National Civic Federation,
member of the Association for the Advancement of Science, a director of the
Clendenin State Bank and a member of the Ralston Health Club of Washington, D. C.
During the life of the People's party, Mr. Hill was chairman of the Third
Congressional District Executive Committee, edited and published a paper called
"Liberty," and was also the publisher of a 400-page book which is entitled "The
Church of the Bible and Its Apostasy."
On March 7, 1898, Mr. Hill married Miss Edna L. Black, of Gallatin, Missouri.
They have four children, Irene, Helen, Owen Delmas and Francis B.
Although engaged in many other enterprises, Mr. Hill has always lived on the farm
and been an admirer and breeder of thoroughbred stock, in the development of which
he has taken much personal interest.
Mr. Hill says: Never having had any scholastic advantages, whatever I know of the
sciences, medicine, philosophy, History, Astronomy and statesmanship, I owe to the
long association with my father, the late G. W. Hill who was a most learned man
and thorough scholar, and whatever I happen to know of law and equity and the
preparation of legal papers, I learned from Hon. James F. Brown, an able lawyer
and a most brilliant man with whom I was associated seventeen years, and
whatever knowledge I may possess of theology and religion and whatever I may
amount to in the world as a man, I owe largely to Rev. Lyman H. Johnson, late
of Boston, Massachusetts, and Rev. Francis G. Merrill, of New Brunswick, New
Jersey, both men of exceptional wisdom, piety, religion and scholarship, both
of whom had much to do with my earlier training."
Mr. Hill frequently writes for the press along moral, civic, religious, political
and patriotic lines. His articles are always carefully prepared, full of original
ideas, forceful in character, clear in expression, exhibit a wide range of
knowledge and well merit the consideration of an intelligent citizenship.