Samuel Lapham Hill (1806 - 1882)

Born 30 Jul 1806 in Smithfield, Providence, Rhode Island

Ancestors

Husband of Louisa (Chase) Hill — married about 1827 in Smithfield, Providence, Rhode Island

Husband of Roxana Maria (Gaylord) Hill — married 18 Jan 1837 in Chaplin, Windham, Connecticut

Descendants

Died 13 Dec 1882 at age 76 in Citronelle, Mobile, Alabama

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Burial

Burial:

Place: Park Street Cemetery, Florence, Hampshire, Massachusetts

Biography

Samuel L. Hill, born in Rhode Island in 1806, was originally a Quaker. Though he was expelled from that religion when he married outside the faith, he remained committed to utilizing peaceful means and the open discussion of ideas to resolve disputes. In the 1830s, he became the overseer, or boss, of a cotton mill in Connecticut. He was also active there in the Baptist church, having joined that sect after his marriage. It was an incident at the Baptist church in Willimantic, Connecticut, where he was a deacon, that caused him to leave organized religions for the remainder of his life. Already interested in the relatively new social movement of abolitionism, he invited Wendell Phillips, a prominent speaker, to talk on the subject at the church. The meeting was broken up by an egg-throwing mob with other deacons from the church taking part. Within a few years, Hill became interested in the commune movement that was just beginning to flourish in the Northeast. Communities like Brook Farm and Oneida had already been established. Hill, with some relatives and others, decided to purchase a failing silk mill at what is now Florence, Massachusetts with the idea that a communal lifestyle could be established there. In 1842, The Northampton Association of Education and Industry was formed, with Samuel Hill as treasurer. Among those who came to Florence at this time were suffragists working for women's rights and abolitionists seeking the end of slavery. Sojourner Truth became a member of the commune, working there for about three years. The commune broke up in 1846 and Hill assumed the debts of the group, acquiring the mill buildings and silk business in the process. He began to speculate in real estate at about this time, and sold land lots to help pay off the debt of the old commune. Among those to whom he sold homes was Sojourner Truth, who mentions Hill by name in her autobiography. Not seeking a handout to pay for her home, she said she appreciated the fact that Hill would enter into a regular business arrangement with her like any other person. She purchased an adjoining lot from Hill in the mid-1850's and paid for them both just before leaving the area for Battle Creek, Michigan, where she later died. Former commune members and others, still believing that the discussion of ideas was crucial to local and individual development, founded the Free Congregational Society in 1865. Samuel Hill wrote their charter. It said, in part, "for our advancement in truth and goodness, and for the promotion of general intelligence, good morals, and liberal, religious sentiments, [we] do hereby form...the 'Free Congregational Society of Florence'..., recognizing the brotherhood of the human race and the equality of human rights, we make no distinction as to the conditions of rights of membership in this society, on account of sex, or color, or nationality." Among the basic activities of the Society was the regular invitation of prominent speakers of the time on a variety of topics. Returning to Florence for such a speech was Frederick Douglass. While in the village, he stayed at the home of Samuel Hill on Maple Street. Douglass had first visited Florence in the 1840s, and it was at that place that he met Sojourner Truth. The people of Florence, Samuel Hill among them, were very active in the underground railroad movement, aiding fleeing slaves in their escape to Canada at a time when, under Massachusetts law, a slave owner could send agents to apprehend and return slaves who had managed to get even as far as Massachusetts. Samuel Hill's home is one of a few in Florence that are known or are suspected to have been used to hide runaway slaves. Though the home has undergone extensive remodeling, testimony of former residents reports passageways within the walls and secret rooms hidden in the cellar. It is known that Samuel Hill's son Arthur acted as a "conductor", taking the former slaves from Florence to safe houses in Cummington and farther.

In the early 1870s, Hill invited Elizabeth P. Peabody to be one of the speakers for the Society. She was an early advocate of the educational ideas of Froebel, who had begun the kindergarten movement in Germany. Whatever effect she may have had on the other listeners, Hill was taken with her words to the degree that he opened rooms in his own home for kindergarten classes almost at once. Their popularity soon exceeded his available space and they were moved to Cosmian Hall.

Not content to merely introduce the idea of tuition-free kindergartens to North America, Hill left a sizable portion of his estate for the foundation of what would become known as Hill Institute. Today offering practical classes to adults as well as operating as a full-time kindergarten, Hill Institute continues to operate with no budgetary assistance from any government.

Ill-health made it expedient for Hill to travel extensively in his last years, often journeying to lakes in Minnesota in warm months and to retreats in the South during winter. He died while away from Florence on one of these sojourns in 1882 at Citronelle, Alabama on Mobile Bay. As it took several days for him to be shipped home by train for burial, no public viewing of the body was possible. This occasioned one local newspaper writer to report the disappointment of the residents of Florence that they would "never again look upon his sagacious visage".

Upward Steps of Seventy Years by Giles B. Stebbins, 1890, pp 60-63, provides a first-hand account.

When the Association broke up, its financial affairs were in bad condition. One of its leading members, Samuel L. Hill, felt morally bound to see its debts paid. He was not bound legally, but his name had helped its credit, and he felt that he must make all good. To the creditors he said : "Give me time, and I will pay you all; if you disturb me I cannot do it." In ten years every dollar was paid, thousands more than he was worth on the start, He was a simple and unpretending man, plain in his ways, of remarkable sagacity and tireless industry, his integrity and sincerity the highest, his moral courage unsurpassed, his kindness and wise benevolence beautiful, his sound judgment remarkable. He became the leading owner and manager of the Nonotuck Sewing Silk Company, enlarged their works, filled with finest mechanism, and employing over four hundred persons. All that he took part in must be honest and thorough. There was no sham in him, and there should be none in his mills. His word was his bond, his credit undoubted, his promise unfailing. As the village grew the schoolhouse was too small. He said to the town committee : "Give me the old house, and I will build a better one." In a year his building was completed, at a cost of $35,000. The upper story of a wing was a neat hall, for the use of the Free Congregational Society, and a library and reading-room free to the factory workers and others, and he paid largely to sustain both. At a later time when all the schoolhouse was wanted, he paid over $20,000 toward building Cosmian Hall for the Society, and helped to sustain this unsectarian effort for the presentation of different opinions in religion, the advocacy of practical reforms by representative men and women, and the moral instruction and innocent recreation of the young. He also paid $4,000 toward a kindergarten school, open to all children. Other men have paid money freely for public purposes, but few have been so unwearied as he was in well-doing, not known of men, or so fatherly in their constant care for others. If sickness or misfortune came to any, his help lighted their path as quietly and cheerily as the sunshine. If weakness or vice brought the trial, his warning was as faithful as it was kind ; his sage suggestion was help to a better life, and not self-righteous rebuke. He helped the deserving to help themselves, and opened ways upward for the faithful and capable, instead of using them, and then pushing them down as selfish men often do. He was singularly thoughtful of all that might help the comfort or culture of the people. The factory girl had from him the same quiet respect any lady of the land would have; boarding houses were planned for comfort and good behavior; the atmosphere was everywhere permeated by a fatherly influence, a sense of protecting kindness. In his good efforts he had the ready help of co-workers of like spirit, his son Arthur, A. T. Lilly, manager in the mill, and others. The skilled labor needed called for good wages, and this helped to build up a tasteful village of some 2,500 people, intelligent and well behaved beyond the average. A few years ago a Christmas party was made for him in the Hall. Not far below the village was a large cotton mill, owned by another company on the river, and many Irish Catholics were employed there; but they had felt a kindly wisdom that knew no limits of creed, and they came to meet Protestants and heretics in all good will. They asked Father Hill to go to the foot of the stairs, and there was a nice sleigh, the gift of warm and honest hearts. He was so quiet and unpretending as not to be appreciated by strangers, but his goodness and greatness grew with intimacy. In the "martyr days" of early anti-slavery, he was an abolitionist, with fidelity to conscience as firm as that of any Puritan. Thought of reputation or business prospects never turned his course or sealed his lips, and by his noble integrity he won the respect and confidence of all; his success a lesson to all time-servers and moral cowards, his bravely persistent industry and courage a lesson to all weak and aimless souls. He was somewhat above middle-height, with a serviceable body built for useful work, a high and noble head, a serious aspect, plain and kindly manners, and the quiet ways that we often see in men of large power.

Hours and days at his hospitable home, quiet talks in his last years when illness kept him from active work, are well remembered.

Travels in Search of a Settler's Guide-book of America and Canada, George Jacob Holyoake, 1884, pp109-110

Afterwards I visited Mr. SAMUEL L. HILL, the chief founder of Florence. He was a man of good stature, of good forehead, and of impressive countenance. In the middle of this century he had been a chief leader and promoter of a social community in the neighbourhood of Florence, which has an instructive history. He subsequently acted upon the high principle of associative life which he professed. He subscribed $20,000 towards the erection of the Cosmian Hall, in Florence, and subscribed $1,500 a year to the support of the preacher. A house he had built for himself he gave up to be used as a " Kinder Garten " school for children. The upper room, with two bay-windows looking over verdant gardens, was very beautiful. It was well supplied with means of instruction. The teachers resided in the house, and all the establishment was supported by Mr. HILL'S generosity. In the winter, when snow fell, he sent a large, light wagon from the farm, which went round to the homes of the little pupils. When school was over this wagon came for them and again left each at home. The morning wagon, gathering clean-faced, rosy children, and driving them laughing from house to house, until it was full of little kindergarteners, was a sight as pretty as a prayer. Mr. HILL was a Quaker, but marrying a bright-eyed Baptist, he joined that Church, and became deacon at Willimantic, Connecticut. He set himself against slavery in its dangerous days, but he was soon "admonished that the church could not be used to address the people on that subject." He was afterwards found with those engaged in the bitterest fight for the freedom of the negro. His philanthropy was not sentimental at one corner only, it was of an all-round, robust quality. He was also for the welfare of all in his employ. He wanted every man to be permanently well off. He assisted them to get houses and land of their own. It has been said lately in the Springfield Sunday Republican, that probably half the buildings in Florence came to be thus owned by his aid. He owned himself the steam silk mills of Nonotuck. He was a co- operator of the old school who have nearly all died out. He gave $25,000 to a fund to enable workmen to get houses, and $27,000 to erect a great School House. To the school superintendent he paid $1,000 a year, in order that he might receive $2,000 salary, as he well knew that there is no folly like that of stinginess and parsimony towards those whose brains you need to do good work. In all things he was a co-operator, with the spirit of a gentleman, who knew that knowledge was a good investment, and took care that all who laboured for him by hand or brain had " a good time of it." His merit was that he did not look for profit, but for improvement; or rather that was the profit he had in view. He lived himself in what we should call a plain villa residence. I think, with pleasure, that I spent some time with him the last night he passed in it. He set out next day for Citronville, Alabama, for change of air, but died on his arrival there. His age was 75. Many were the fugitives from slavery of body, of capital, and of opinion who had found shelter in his hospitable house in the evil days of progress. These were " actions of the just," which " smell sweet and blossom in the dust." I and my friends were the guests of his son, Mr. A. G. HILL. It was he who, observing in 1879 I had some repressed aspirations towards perfection, remarked that " he supposed I did not want to be an angel at starting out." Mr. HILL has sent me a letter describing the death of his father, which was calm and regnant like his life. From the fine spirit in which he speaks of his father's career and example, I conclude that the lustre of it will be sustained in his son.

Data Changed

Data Changed:

Date: 2 Dec 2004

Time: 18:14:33

Prior to import, this record was last changed 18:14:33 2 Dec 2004.

Sources

• WikiTree profile Hill-2854 created through the import of BDM7-7-11.ged on Jul 8, 2011 by Brian McCullough. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Brian and others.