NATHAN HILL, founder of Hopewell Christian Church. In Rerick's Atlas of Miami County, it is stated that Nathan Hill was the first settler of Newton Township. This should read: "That he came to what is now Newton Township with the first settlers," for at that time-1800-he was only a boy twelve years of age.

He was born in Maryland, near Ellicott's Mills, on the 15th day of March, 1788. His father's name was Thomas Hill, and he and Michael Williams moved west and located in Montgomery County, south of Dayton, Ohio. About 1800 these two pioneers came north seeking for lands to better their conditions, and it was natural for them to keep on the old Indian trail, as they did until they reached that part of Montgomery County best suited to their tastes, and there selected their future homes, Michael Williams taking the part next to the river, and Nathan Hill taking what is now the old homestead. They each had a half section of land. On the north side of this land they erected comfortable hewed log houses, and the next spring moved their families. Thomas Hill's house stood a little to the north-east of the present residence. It has long since been torn down. They took part in the organization of Miami County, which was taken from Montgomery, January 16, 1807. The next spring after they moved up, Nathan and his brother returned for another load of their belongings. At Dayton the river was very much swollen and the fording dangerous. After having gone that far they did not want to turn back, and drove the team into the river; the lead horses turned around in the middle of the stream, upset the wagon and threw his brother into the water. He was clinging to the hind wheel of the wagon when last seen. Nathan hurriedly cut the hamestring of the saddle horse which he was riding to go to his brother's relief, but before he could reach him he had loosened his hold and was carried down the river. His body was afterward recovered. The return home with the dead body of his brother was the saddest mission of his life. It was the first funeral in the little colony.

Nathan Hill was married to Frances Williams, a daughter of Michael Williams, on the 29th day of June, 1809. He, with the assistance of his father and father-in-law, built a hewed log house a little southeast of the family residence, and in the same yard, moved to it themselves, and there laid the foundation of their future prosperity. They also built a hewed log house for his brother John. This was the most spacious house in the west part of the county, and many people came to see it. It came into possession of my father, who sold it to Joseph Cox, and he removed it to his farm cast of town, where it is still doing good service. Thomas Hill, the father, died in 1821, aged sixty-two years, leaving these two sons Nathan and John --in comfortable homes, wherein to rear their fast-increasing families. The old homestead is still in the name of his heirs, having passed down by devise until the present time.

Nathan Hill was a Whig in politics, but he was not aggressive; always willing to accord to others the same right of thinking, that he claimed for himself. Before Newton or Pleasant Hill was organized the voting was done at his house, and the state militia met and drilled in the little field east of the house until the law was repealed.

He was of a religious turn of mind, and on the 4th day of November, 1816, in an upstairs room in his dwelling house, he organized Hopewell Church. I have no data is to the number of families at the time, but presume it was quite small, but very determined. In 1820 they erected a church of hewed logs just across the road south of the cemetery on his farm. This building was used for several years. Tile congregation grew beyond the capacity of the church. I have seen it packed so full of people that their legs were sticking outside at the windows. This may need a little explanation. On such occasions the windows, being long and narrow, were taken out and those coming late were glad to get their heads inside. I remember distinctly when the first meeting was held to consider the building of the new frame church, about 1848. It was well attended and they easily agreed to go ahead and put up the new structure. It was built the next summer, and the work never lagged for want of funds. It was a very large building, but I am not able to give the dimensions. It served the purpose of the congregation until about 1868, when it was blown down by a storm. The new brick church was then erected on the present site at Pleasant Hill. Mr. Hill was always present at the services, chopped the wood, made the fires and swept the house, and kept the grounds in order. He always took part in the praying, singing and exorting, and in a great many other ways encouraged the attendance of the members and others. He was a charitable man and gave largely to the poor and needy, visited the sick and ministered to their wants. His influence went out and did good in many ways. I remember an incident that happened when I was in college at Cincinnati.

My roommate was Thomas Coppock, a most excellent boy from near Ludlow Falls long since deceased. One Sunday morning Mr. Coppock was counting his money; I had none to count. I saw a tear in his eye, and asked him what the trouble was, as he was usually of a jolly nature and cheerful disposition. He said: My mind is up at old Hopewell Church, and I would give that five dollar bill to hear Grandfather Nathan Hill sing his old hymn, "Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound." At that time there were two boys there with tears in their eyes.

One winter the roads had been almost impassable and grocery supplies could not be had even in Dayton. He hitched a horse to a sled and went to Cincinnati for a barrel of salt. A very heavy snow fell and he was absent nearly two weeks.

The weather was very severe, and an old Indian, by name Amokee, came to the house with his gun reversed on his shoulder to show that he meant no harm. He wanted something to eat. Grandmother told him the situation that her husband was gone, and that they had nothing to eat in the way of meats, as there was no salt, and they had not butchered. She baked him a corn pone, and he ate heartily and left. In the evening he returned, dragging the bind part of a deer that his trusty rifle had slain, and said, it was bad that her little pappooses did not have any meat. He remained with them until in the spring and then departed as he came. The Amokee Lodge of Red Men, of Covington, was named after this Indian.

Mr. Hill reared a family of ten children, and some orphan children made their home with him. All this large family are deceased, except Mary, the wife of Thomas Hill, who resides with one of her sons in Kansas City, Mo. He loved company, and on Sunday, especially, the first Sunday of each month, when the monthly services were held, large crowds would go over to his house for dinner. I know it from experience, as I have had to wait and sit at the fifth table. I thought at that time that the procedure ought to be reversed, and the "kids" allowed to eat first. His wife was an excellent companion for him. She did not attend church as much as he did, but remained at home attending to her family cares, and made it possible for him to go. She never opened the oven to take out her bread without thanking the Lord for his bounties. She survived him about eight years, living with her youngest son Nathaniel, recently deceased. She died on the 10th day of November, 1870, aged eighty years, ten months, an d twenty-one days.

A fine stream of water, clear as crystal, crept out through a rift in the rock, and emptied into a large basin, almost at the back door of the house, and from there it wandered into the springhouse among myriads of milk crocks, which made a place not equalled by the best modern refrigerators, from there on through the wash house into the meadow, where it irrigated the soil and slaked the thirst of his stock. Myriads of song birds were flitting about the farm and among the branches of the large elm trees, which he allowed to grow and cast their shadows over his barn yard; and I am informed that the old elm tree is still the roosting-place of the beautiful and noisy blackbirds, which have made that tree their home for the last hundred years or more.

It was an ideal home for him in his old days, where his grandchildren gathered around him and ministered to his wants. He was proud of it and spent most of his time there. He was good to his wife and children, raised a great deal of garden truck; was an apiarist and had large quantities of bees that gathered in the honey from the wild flowers. His cattle waded in pastures knee-high, and his table literally flowed with milk and honey.

I have seen him many times laboring in the fields. Even when he was an old man he would ride his family mare in the field with a sack of wheat on her shoulders, a handkerchief tied over her ears to keep the grain out of them, and go back and forth across the field sowing wheat, and his grandchildren harrowing it in.

It was the custom in those days for the ladies to ride horseback. They would gather in and take the family mare in the pasture back of the barn and practice while he was at church. This went on for a long time before he found it out. It was about all the old mare could do during the week to recruit up for her Sunday task. When he learned of it his sympathy for the old mare was stronger than his desire to see the girls learn to ride, so he cut it out.

He was a great horticulturist, and planted a large orchard of apple, peach, pear, and cherry trees. He also erected a large beam cider-press, that could be manipulated by a small boy so as to exert a pressure of several hundred tons, and cider was to be had from August to freezing-up time, free to all comers. His orchard produced an abundance of fruit and it was always free to the public. When apples could not be had in the orchard there were always plenty in the cellar. At one time two of his neighbor's boys went there for pears and, a little out of the ordinary, one of them went to the house and requested the privilege of picking a certain tree. Grandfather told the one that called at the house that he was saving that particular tree for his own use, that he might fill his sack from some other tree. The boy went off but soon returned and told him that his brother had the pears in the sack and was on the way home with them. Instead of being offended, he took it as a good joke and often related it.

He had the finest sugar grove in the county-some of the trees are yet standing-and in the spring of the year he would have tapped several hundred trees and make sugar by the barrel and large quantities of molasses. The young folks would gather at night, boil water, stir off the syrup, and make wax, and sometimes boil eggs and even roast chickens, after he had gone to bed. He was always so good natured that the egg shells, nor even the chicken bones, would attract his attention the next morning.

The Old Indian Trail, or Roadway, went through the east part of this section, a little west of the C. H. & D. Railroad, and just where it crossed the half-section line they erected a log school-house. Owing to their being good mechanics, this house was better than the average schoolhouse of those days. It was built of hewed logs, had slab benches, sawed writing-desks around the wall, and glass windows, and was heated with a stove. I started to school there in 1846, together with my friend, Jacob Reiber, and some others. Uncle Nathaniel Hill was teacher, and on bad days I would ride home on his back. One night the schoolhouse was robbed of all the books. On my way to school I found them all in a neat pile on about the fifth rail from the ground, with the balance of the fence resting upon them. They were too heavy for me to carry, so I reported the fact, and teacher and all the school repaired to the spot, and the books were restored and school went on.

Whipping was required of every teacher in those days. Some teachers would call out a whole school and stand them in a row and with a long whip strike the whole bunch. If one should dodge forward to escape the lick, he was put in another line and whipped with a shorter stick, and so on until the teacher felt that he had done his duty; and that was when he was about exhausted.

These improvements were not all made by the Hill Brothers. They were ably assisted by the Williams family, especially John and Henry.

At my birth my mother named me John Calvin, perhaps thinking that if I could cultivate a taste for chickens, I might become a preacher. When I was about two years of age he said to her, " I want you to call that boy Nathan; I want a grandson to bear my name, and you may not have another chance." After some deliberation as to whether or not it was bad luck to change a name after it was given, my mother consented, and my name was changed to Nathan. The name of John Calvin has been praised from one end of the country to the other, but with all that, there never was a more noble, upright, honest, charitable example to be followed than that of Nathan Hill. He was a large portly man, weighed about two hundred pounds, had a keen eye, dark brown hair, and in his declining years stooped a little forward, and walked with his hands clasped together on his back. His firm step, his elastic limbs, and his undimmed senses, were so many certificates of good conduct, or rather jewels or orders of nobility, with which nature had adorned him for fidelity to her laws. His fair complexion showed that his blood had never been corrupted; his pure breath that he had never yielded his digestive apparatus to the vintage cesspool; his exact language and keen apprehension, that his brain had never been poisoned by the distiller or tobacconist. Enjoying his appetite to the highest, he had preserved the power of enjoying it. Despite the moral of the schoolboy's story, he had eaten his cake and still kept it. As he drained the cup of life there were no lees at the bottom. His organs all reached their goal of existence together. Painless as the sun sinks below the western horizon, so did he expire on the 15th day of January, 1862, aged seventy-three Years and ten months.........by NATHAN IDDINGS.