Memorials Hilles Family

MEMORIALS of the HILLES FAMILY More particularly of SAMUEL and MARGARET HILL HILLES of Wilmington, Delaware WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THEIR ANCESTRY AND SOME DATA NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED ALSO EXTENDED REFERENCES TO THE LIFE OF RICHARD HILLES or HILLS PRINCIPAL FOUNDER OF THE MERCHANT TAYLORS SCHOOL IN LONDON, 1561.. THE FRIEND OF MILES COVERDALE, JOHN CALVIN, ARCHBISHOP CRANMER, BISHOP HOOPER AND OTHERS, PROMINENT IN -THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REFORMATION TOGETHER WITH A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED SONNET AND PORTRAIT OF JOHN G. \VHITTIER WITH ILLUSTRATIONS SAMUEL E. HILLES CINCINNATI 1928 Copyright, 1928, by SAMUEL E. HILLES Printed in the United States of America Frontispiece SAMUEL HILLES 1788-1873 Photographed about 1870. To the cherished memory of SAMUEL HILLES and MARGARET HILL HILLES this labor of love is affectionately dedicated by their grandson "In March, 1638, the first group of colonists sent out by the Government of Sweden was landed at 'The Rocks,' a natural wharf at Christiana Creek, just above its junction with the Brandywine. The transport was an armed vessel named from an important port of the southern coast of Sweden, 'Key of Kalmar.' The photographic reproduction herewith was made from the miniature model in the Swedish Naval Museum. The ship was of less than two hundred tons burden, and the cargo consisted of adzes, knives and other tools, mirrors, gilt chains and the like, for trade with the natives. The leader of the expedition, Peter Minuit, was a native of Holland." -Courtesy of Wilmington Trust Company. FOREWORD HESE MEMORIALS, in mind for many years, have finally been undertaken, as a labor of love, by a grandson who was T named for the grandfather and closely associated with the later life of SAMUEL HILLES and MARGARET HILL HILLES, in their home in Wilmington, Delaware. Without apology for doing so, I feel it but right, having some original papers, some new family data and many precious memories, to share with others who knew and loved them, and to hand down to their posterity some knowledge of the lives of those to whom they are so greatly indebted. In the old home in Wilmington, a six-story, double, brick house, built in 1818, by the two devoted brothers, Eli and Samuel Hilles, for their boarding school for girls, my father, William S. Hilles, and my mother, Sarah Lancaster (Allen) Hilles, occupied in 1858, the comer half, at Tenth and King Streets. Grandfather and grand mother lived in the northern half, the one used, in the old school days, for distinctly school purposes, and the other for the family life. · The "yard" on the East extended clear to French Street and be hind the "Bayard" house, a three-story brick dwelling built and owned by grandfather (and in which I was born), next North of the big house, and thus embraced more than half of the city block. The old First Baptist Church, established about 1784, stood next, and beyond that, on the S. E ... corner of Eleventh and King Streets, was the "Riddle" house. The "yard" was notable for the number and variety of trees and shrubbery, all, except the few. shrubs on our undivided side and the decrepit old cherry-tree, near French Street, having been planted and carefully nurtured by grandfather, a tulip-poplar being of notable height. The property, indeed, once extended clear to the Brandywine Creek, covering most of the land between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, East of French Street. Uncle Eli also owned, after a division of the joint property, from Tenth to Ninth Street, on the East side of King, and a considerable property at the S. E. corner of Ninth Street, disposed of later at a sale remembered by me, V William Bright being the auctioneer and McLear and Kendall the buyers, for their carriage factory. East of Walnut Street, in abandoned brick-clay pits, was "Tarry Pond," the scene of much pleasant sport for us children, in Winter. At the N. E. corner of Tenth and French was an extensive vegetable garden, tended by ''Matthew,'' grandfather's coachman and gardener for many years. Next East of this, across Walnut Street, was a brick-yard, the enterprise formerly of father's younger brother, John S. Hilles (I think his first business). To this he gave strict attention, even sharing the labors of the men keeping up the fires through the night. Eleventh Street has, approximately indeed, replaced "the lane," along which a cow or two, daily driven to and from their pasturage, were, even in my time, housed in the frame barn on the S. E. corner of Tenth and French Streets. But one block from the main (Market) street, the buildings on the East side of King Street became more conspicious, years ago, when the "square" in front was cleared of the "basins" or reservoirs, and the first County Court-house there, built upon a portion of that space, when Wilmington was made the county-seat. Now (1928), one looks in vain for any trace of the old Hilles home, or its immediate surroundings; for a new Municipal and County Court-house in cut-stone, covers the whole block, East of King Street (see illustration.) In place of the old Presbyterian Meeting-house, now removed to a City park, with its date, 1740, in black brick on one side, in the comer of the cemetery, now stands the fine, new Public Library, facing the Public Garden on the North, the latter with its fine equestrian statue of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. On Market Street, facing this Garden, stands the du Pont building, hotel and business-block. "Brandywine Walk," now Market Street, North of Tenth, has few if any survivors in memory. A Rip Van Winkle would, indeed, rub his eyes in amaze at the changes, even in my own time! In the old home was a convenient door on the second-floor, from our portion into grandfather's and the porch in the rear was also continuous; so it was both easy and delightful for us to pass "next door ," and spend minutes or hours with the dear people there; and thus we lived, until the break, in 1873, when grandfather, having driven himself behind his safely-moving horse, "Rock", to afternoon "meeting" and himself only lightly clad, put up his faithful horse in the barn (brick having replaced the old frame), and by reason of VI a sudden change in August temperature, brought on a severe chill, soon after, so that Dr. Corse was sent for, that evening. Even at eighty-five years -of age, he seemed somewhat relieved, but early the next morning (Monday, August 4, 1873), the end came, as he had lived, in peace! But two days before, he, with grandmother and others of the family, had attended the funeral, at "Ivy Lodge," Germantown, of Rachel Pearsall Smith, the wife of John Jay Smith, grandmother's only surviving brother. She, M. H. H., the oldest of her family to reach maturity, outlived them all, dying March 27, 1882, in her 97th year. From their joint desire that they might be interred in the old burying ground of the Burlington Friends, "the Westminster Abbey of the Friends," as Thomas Chase called it, there, in the single grave, where her remains were later placed, we grandsons laid his, on a never-to-be-forgotten Summer day. In the hallowed old Meeting-house, Charles Rhoads took for his text, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." SAMUEL E. HILLES No. 911 Marion Avenue, Cincinnati, 0. November 1, 1928. The writer(S. E. H) to his aunt, the widow of John S. Hilles, and to her daughter,.Anne T. Hilles on receiving a picture of the old home at Tenth and King Streets, Wilmington, Delaware. My Dear Aunty and Cousin Anne:- You could not have sent me a more delightful gift than that (a photograph) of the dear old home; here .it is, just before me, on top of my desk in the study, the great house with its traditions of hospitality and of all that was best and most worth doing or thinking. There are the marble steps I helped to polish, and high above, the deck between the chimneys, from which I succeeded in flying my kite, until the curving line caught in the top of the poplar in the old yard. Through the windows of the parlor on our side of the house, I eagerly watched the procession of the "Wide Awakes" in war-time, or tended the candles placed there for illumination. From the windows of the third story, I looked across, at dusk of seven o'clock, VII when I was put to bed, to the banks of the old basin, and fancied the antics of the beautiful fish I of ten had seen there, when "Cassie" took us that way with pieces of bread to throw to their hungry mouths. ', From the windows of the first attic, we could see a mile westward, "Hilton", Uncle Charles Rowland's beautiful home, guarded by its stately sentinels-hemlocks-which anon sighed in the breeze, and gave direction to many a pilot on the Delaware River, far away ~'Hilton" nee "Tilton," the Mecca of unnumbered pilgrimages of our childhood. From the top of the hill on Tenth Street, on wintry days I started on my sled, proud when I could say I had gone all the way to Walnut Street, or on a particularly icy morning, clear to the edge of "Tarry Pond". And when we wanted more light in the front cellar, did I not, many a time fasten up the slanting hood which ordinarily covered the cellar window? On the brick pavement toward "Bayards'," rather than on the more uneven and crowded space in front of the towering double house, we kicked around the lead washers for "Hop Scotch," and just inside the fence was the chestnut tree, which was an eyrie for one young climber.

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