Hill

In this contest he was defeated by Alexander H.
Stephens, who, however, was not allowed to
take his seat. In 1868, with Joseph E. Brown
and Alexander H. Stephens, he was again a
candidate for the Senate. The conservative
Democrats, unable to elect Stephens, threw their
strength to Hill, who was thus enabled to defeat
Brown by no votes to 94. The only consolation
the embittered Democrats got out of the election
was the defeat of Brown, for Hill immediately
and frankly voiced his Republican principles and
his intention to support the policies of Congress.
But despite the fact that he had stubbornly op-
posed secession, had declined to take part in the
war, had led a peace movement during the war,
had entered the Republican party, and had
worked for the radical reconstruction policies,
he never incurred personal odium nor lost the
respect of the Georgia people. His term expired
in March 1873. On retiring from the Senate he
returned to his home in Madison and took no
further part in politics except to serve as a mem-
ber of the state constitutional convention of
1877. Shortly after taking up his residence in
Monticello Hill had married Emily Reid, daugh-
ter of a prominent planter and spoken of as a
woman of beauty and culture. Eight children
were born to the couple, four sons and four
daughters. The second son, Legare, against the
wishes of his father, entered the war and was
killed at the battle of Resaca, in north Georgia.
Hill lived to a ripe old age and left a large estate
for the time. He was an atheist.

[The best sketch of Hill is that by R. J. Massey in
W. J. Northen, Men of Mark in Ga., vol. Ill (1911)*
See also I. W, Hill, Hist, of Ga. 1850-81 (1881) ; Biog.
Dir. Am. Cong. (1928); Morning News (Savannah),
and the Atlanta Constitution, Mar. 7, 1891.] R.p.B.

HILL, NATHANIEL PETER (Feb. 18,1832-
May 22, 1900), metallurgist, senator from Colo-
rado, was born at Montgomery, Orange County,
N. Y,, where his ancestor Nathaniel Hill had
settled in 1730. He was the third of the seven
children of Nathaniel P. Hill and Matilda
(Crawford) Hill. A farmer's boy with prepara-
tory education at the local Montgomery Acad-
emy, he entered Brown University, graduating
in 1856. In 1856-58 he was assistant in chemis-
try there, and from 1858 to 1864 instructor and
then professor of chemistry applied to arts. Win-
ning the confidence of a group of Rhode Island
and Massachusetts manufacturers, he received a
commission, in 1864, to investigate the geological
and economic features of a tract of land in Gilpin
County, Colo. While on this trip he observed
the great loss of gold in the stamp mills of Black-
hawk and vicinity where the amalgamation proc-
ess was in use, and noted that the loss increased

Hill

as surface (oxidized) ores were replaced by
sulphide ("refractory") ore. Hill, believing that
the metal could be better extracted from these
ores by smelting, returned to Colorado twice in
1865, and made two trips to Europe, 1865-66
and 1866-67, to investigate the problem.

Although at that time there were no railroads
west of the Missouri River, he transported seven-
ty-two tons of ore to Swansea in Wales for ex-
perimentation. Upon the success of the tests
which he made there with the assistance of
Welsh metallurgists, Hill organized the Boston
& Colorado Smelting Company, of which he was
general manager from 1867 until his death. Re-
turning to Blackhawk, he built a smelting plant
which commenced operation in January 1868.
Later he secured the services of Richard Pearce
[<?.£/.], who in 1873 developed the refining proc-
ess by which the precious metals were separated
from the copper, thus obviating the necessity of
making contracts abroad for this purpose. "Hill's
Smelter," as the Boston & Colorado works near
Denver were usually called, was typically Welsh,
following as a "secret process" a metallurgical
procedure which was destined soon to become
obsolete. Nevertheless, to Hill's opportune ob-
servation that smelting, rather than the amalga-
mation process, was required for the non-oxi-
dized, deep-level ores is to be credited the
inauguration of the great mining era of the
Rocky Mountain region.

Hill became mayor of Blackhawk in 1871, soon
after his permanent settlement there; he was a
member of the Territorial Council, 1872-73, and
United States senator from Colorado from 1879
to 1885. The speech on the silver question which
he delivered in the Senate on June 20, 1882, in
reply to Senator Sherman, received favorable
comment from the London Economist (Aug. 26,
1882). It was reprinted in Hill's Speeches and
Papers on the Silver, Postal Telegraph, and
Other Economic Questions (1890). He was for
some years a regent of the Smithsonian Insti-
tution. Upon returning to Denver after the ex-
piration of his term in the Senate, he became
proprietor of the influential Denver Republican,
through which he supported the free coinage of
silver. In 1891 he was appointed to the Inter-
national Monetary Commission and in 1893 was
a delegate to the Bimetallic Conference. In addi-
tion to his general managership of the Boston
& Colorado Smelting Company he was actively
interested in real estate and in the development
of oil lands in the vicinity of Florence, Colo. He
was married in July 1860, to Alice Hale, whom
he survived. They had one son and two daugh-
ters, all of whom survived their father.

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