Hillhouse

ried Henrietta Boude, daughter of Samuel and
Deborah Boude of Philadelphia, by whom he
had ten children. He died in Philadelphia.

[E. St. C. Whitney, Michael Hillegas and His De-
scendants (1891) ; M. R. Minnich, Memoir of the First
Treasurer of the U. S. (1905) and "Some Data of the
Hillegas Family," in Am. Hist. Reg.3 Sept. 1894; Emil
Baensch, in Trust Companies, Sept. 1917; W. H. Egle,
in Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan. 1888; J. H. Mar-
tin, Martin's Bench and Bar of Phila. (1883) ; G. Mor-
gan, The City of Firsts (1926) ; Relfs Phila. Gazette,
Sept. 2g, 1804; Paulson's Am. Daily Advertiser
(Phila.), Oct. i, 1804.] J.H.F.

HILLHOUSE, JAMES (Oct. 20, i7S4~Dec.
29, 1832), congressman, was born at Montville,
Conn., the son of William Hillhouse and the
grandson of the Rev. James Hillhouse, the first
minister of Montville, who came to America
from County Londonderry, Ireland, about 1720.
His mother was Sarah Griswold, the sister of
Matthew Griswold [#.^.]. At the age of seven
he was adopted by his uncle, James Abraham
Hillhouse of New Haven. He graduated from
Yale College in 1773, took up the study of law,
was admitted to the bar, and inherited the prac-
tice of his uncle, who died in 1775. On the out-
break of the Revolution, he was appointed lieu-
tenant of a company of volunteers raised in the
town of New Haven in December 1776. He be-
came lieutenant of the 2nd company of Gov-
ernor's Foot Guards in May 1777, and captain
of the company two years later. In July 1779
he took part in the successful defense of New
Haven against the invasion of the British under
Tryon. Elected as a representative of New Ha-
ven to the General Assembly of Connecticut in
1780, he was repeatedly returned to the office,
and in 1789 he began a service of two terms in
the upper house of the legislature. Although he
was chosen a delegate to the Continental Con-
gress in 1786, 1787, and 1788, he did not attend.
In 1790, however, he was elected to the Second
Congress of the United States and took his seat
in the House in October 1791. He was also a
member of the Third and Fourth Congresses and
in December 1796 was elected to fill a vacancy
in the United States Senate caused by the resig-
nation of Oliver Ellsworth \,q.v.~\. He was three
times reflected. He supported the Jay Treaty,
maintaining it to be "as good a Treaty as we
had a right to expect, and as he had ever ex-
pected to obtain." Upon the retirement of Jef-
ferson as vice-president in 1801, he was chosen
president pro temp ore of the Senate. In political
sympathies he was a Federalist, but he feared
the concentration of power in the hands of the
president of the United States, and in 1808 he
submitted to the Senate a proposal that seven
amendments be added to the federal constitution

Hillhouse
{Propositions for Amending the Constitution of
the United States, 1808). These amendments
provided for the annual election of representa-
tives, a term of three years for senators, the abo-
lition of the office of vice-president, a term of one
year for the president, who would be chosen by
lot from among the senators, the confirmation of
appointments by the House of Representatives
as well as by the Senate, and the ratification by
both houses of removals from office. Hillhouse
also introduced a resolution for the repeal of
the Embargo. He resigned from the Senate in
1810. In this same year he was appointed com-
missioner of the school fund of Connecticut
which had accrued from the sale of the lands re-
served by Connecticut at the time the state ceded
its title to western lands to the federal govern-
ment. From 1795 to 1810 the fund had been in
the hands of a commission of eight who were in-
experienced financiers and was a tangle of un-
paid interest and depreciated securities. In a
light sulky Hillhouse traveled through the un-
settled country, inspected the properties and met
the state's debtors, and administered the fund
so well that when he resigned in 1825 to superin-
tend the construction of the Farmington and
Hampshire Canal, he handed over to the state
an augmented and well-invested fund. In 1814
he was one of the delegates of Connecticut to
the Hartford Convention to protest against the
conduct of the War of 1812. He was treasurer
of Yale College from 1782 until his death. He
was twice married: on Jan. i, 1779, to Sarah
Lloyd of Stamford, who died Nov. 9, 1779, and
on Oct. 10, 1782, to Rebecca Woolsey of Dosoris,
Long Island, who died Dec. 30, 1813. From this
second marriage there were two sons, one of
whom was James Abraham [#.z/.], and three
daughters. Hillhouse died at New Haven, Dec.
29, 1832.
[Leonard Bacon, Funeral Discourse Pronounced at
the Interment^ of the Hon. James Hillhouse, Jan. z, 1833
(1833), reprinted in the Quart. Christian Spectator,
June 1833; F. B. Dexter, Biog. Sketches of the Grads.
of Yale Coll, vol. Ill (1903) ; E. E. Atwater, Hist, of
the City of New Haven (1887) ; Margaret P. Hillhouse,
Hist, and Geneal. Colls. Relating to the Descendants of
Rev. Jas. Hillhouse (1924) ; The Public Records of the
State of Conn. (3 vols., 1894-1922) ; Columbian Reg-
ister (New Haven), Jan. 5, 1833.] DeF.V-S.
HILLHOUSE, JAMES ABRAHAM (Sept.
26, i789-Jan. 4, 1841), poet, was born in New
Haven, Conn., the eldest child of James [q.v.~\
and Rebecca (Woolsey) Hillhouse. Entering
Yale at the age of thirteen, he withdrew before
the end of his freshman year and eventually re-
ceived his A.B. degree with the class of 1808.
Upon taking his master's degree in 1811, he de-
livered an oration on "The Education of a Poet"