“Following their wedding Mr. and Mrs. Hill left immediately for Colorado to make their home, entitling them to rank as pioneers of those days, when Colorado really was the wild and wooly West. For thirty-five years they lived there, and finally, in 1916, came to Los Angeles to make their home.”

— Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1931

 

Very little is presently known about the formative years of Richard Walker Hill — save that he was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on 30 September 1848. But the records of his life after the American Civil War are rich with fascinating details of a man who clearly had an adventurous soul.

American Civil War — 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry

On 14 September 1864, Richard W. Hill enrolled for American Civil War military service in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He then mustered in for duty that same day in Pittsburgh as a private with Company E of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry (also known as the 159th Pennsylvania Volunteers).

His regiment was about to help the Union Army make history in two tide-turning engagements, including the Battle of Opequan, Virginia (19 September 1864) and the Battle of Fisher’s Hill (22 September) — battles in which the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry would also fight. According to historian Samuel P. Bates:

On the 19th of September opened that series of brilliant engagements under Sheridan, in the Shenandoah Valley, which will ever render his name illustrious. In the battle which was delivered on that day, the enemy was driven at all points. The Fourteenth, under command of Captain Duncan, was posted on the extreme right of the cavalry division, and charged, with great heroism and daring, an earth-work, which it captured. The loss was very severe, Captain Duncan being among the killed. Three days afterward, the division came up with the retreating enemy at Fisher’s Hill, where it demonstrated upon the front, while other troops moved upon his flanks, and again he was driven in rout and confusion. The regiment suffered but small loss in this engagement. Early was pursued as far as Harrisonburg, where his force had become so thoroughly disorganized and broken, that little was left to follow. From Harrisonburg, the cavalry moved to Wier’s Cave [sic, Weyers Cave], where, on the 27th, the enemy under Fitz Hugh Lee attacked, and a spirited engagement ensued, in which the Fourteenth, by its gallantry, won an order which directed Wier’s Cave to be inscribed upon its flag. Until the battle of Cedar Creek, on the 19th of October, the regiment was engaged in performing picket duty on the left flank of the army.

The 14th Pennsylvania Cavalrymen then took part in another tide-turning, epic engagement in which the 47th Pennsylvania was also involved — the Battle of Cedar Creek on 19 October 1864. According to Bates:

In that desperate engagement, a detachment [of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry] under Captains Miles and Duff participated, doing excellent service. After the battle, the regiment was sent into the Luray Valley on a reconnoissance, where, on the 24th, it had a sharp encounter, taking some prisoners. It then returned to the neughborhood of Winchester, where it went into camp. The pickets of  the command being much annoyed by small parties of rebel cavalry, the division, under General Powell, on the 12th of November, moved southward, and met the rebel General M’Causland at Front Royal, and after a severe engagement drove him, caoturing all his guns and supply trains. The loss in the Fourteenth was fifteen in killed and wounded.

* Note: The engagement of 14th Pennsylvanians with “small parties of rebel cavalry” and subsequent move south placed the 14th Pennsylvania at Milford (25-26 October), Cedar Creek (8 November), Nineveh (12 November), Rude’s Hill (23 November), and Snicker’s Gap (30 November).

Private Richard W. Hill and his fellow 14th Pennsylvanians then “went into winter-quarters,” according to Bates, but were still “engaged in severe picket and guard duty.”

Two expeditions undertaken during the winter, by detachments from the regiment, one under Captain William W. Miles, on the 11th of December, to Millwood, and a second, under Major Gibson, on the 19th of February, 1865, to Ashby’s Gap, resulted disastrously, the commands losing heavily in killed, wounded, and prisoners, Captain Miles being among the killed.

A week after that heartbreaking encounter, Private Richard W. Hill was transferred to Company C of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (on 26 February 1865).

American Civil War — 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers

Still just seventeen years old when he was transferred from Company E of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry to Company C of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry on 26 February 1865, Richard W. Hill continued to serve as a private with the Union Army.

Assigned in February 1865 to the Provisional Division of the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. Army of the Shenandoah, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers performed guerrilla-fighting duties until late March, when they were ordered to head back to Washington, D.C., by way of Winchester and Kernstown, Virginia.

Joyous News and Then Tragedy

As April 1865 opened, the battles between the Army of the United States and the Confederate States Army intensified, finally reaching the decisive moment when the Confederate troops of General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on 9 April.

The long war, it seemed, was finally over. Less than a week later, however, the fragile peace was threatened when an assassin’s bullet ended the life of President Abraham Lincoln. Shot while attending an evening performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre on 14 April 1865, he died from his head wound at 7:22 a.m. the next morning.

Shocked, and devastated by the news, which was received at their Fort Stevens encampment, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were given little time to mourn their beloved commander-in-chief before they were ordered to grab their weapons and move into the regiment’s assigned position, from which it helped to protect the nation’s capital and thwart any attempt by Confederate soldiers and their sympathizers to re-ignite the flames of civil war that had finally been stamped out.

So key was their assignment that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were not even allowed to march in the funeral procession of their slain leader. Instead, they took part in a memorial service with other members of their brigade that was officiated by the 47th Pennsylvania’s regimental chaplain, the Reverend William D. C. Rodrock.

Present-day researchers who read letters sent by 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers to family and friends back home in Pennsylvania during this period, or post-war interviews conducted by newspaper reporters with veterans of the regiment in later years, will learn that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were collectively heartbroken by Lincoln’s death and deeply angry at those whose actions had culminated in his murder. Researchers will also learn that at least one member of the regiment, C Company Drummer Samuel Hunter Pyers, was given the high honor of guarding President Lincoln’s funeral train, while other members of the regiment were assigned to guard duty at the prison where the key assassination conspirators were being held during the early days of their imprisonment and trial, which began on 9 May 1865. The regiment was headquartered at Camp Brightwood during this period.

Attached to Dwight’s Division of the 2nd Brigade of the Department of Washington’s 22nd Corps, the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were permitted to march in the Union’s Grand Review of the National Armies, which took place in Washington, D.C. on 23 May.

Reconstruction

Afterward, Private Richard Hill and his fellow 47th Pennsylvanians were ordered to America’s Deep South. Stationed in Savannah, Georgia in early June, they were assigned again to Dwight’s Division, but this time, they were attached to the 3rd Brigade, U.S. Department of the South.

Subsequently ordered to relieve the 165th New York Volunteers in Charleston, South Carolina in July 1865, they were quartered in the former mansion of the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, and were assigned to provost-related duties (keeping the peace, overseeing the operations of the city’s jail, dog pound and other local government functions, etc.).

Two months later, Private Richard W. Hill was honorably mustered out from the 47th Pennsylvania in Charleston, on 17 September 1865.

Return to Civilian Life

Following his honorable discharge from the military, Richard W. Hill re-enlisted with an infantry regiment of the U.S. Army in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois during the spring of 1866, but was discharged by October of that same year.

On 6 January 1881, he married Georgiana Frances Pike (1856-1944) in Chicago, Illinois, and promptly migrated southwest with her to Colorado, where they settled in the city of Denver and welcomed the births of: Eugene B. Hill, who was born in April 1882 and later wed Susie B. Young in 1906; Richard Thomas Hill (1883-1922), who was born on 31 August 1883 and later wed Jessie Emma Woodworth (1885-1951); Alice Leah Hill (1889-1974), who was born on 25 November 1889 and later wed and was widowed by William Andrew Love (1891-1919), before marrying Fred Stratton Price (1888-1964) and settling with him in California and then marrying Robert Abraham Godlove (1885-1980); John Edwin Hill (1891-1973), who was born on 16 February 1891 and later wed Hazel Olive Gray (1895-1987); Ruth Helen Hill (1894-1975), who was born in 1894 and later wed George William Henderson (1890-1943); and Frances Emily Hill (1898-1986), who was born on 30 April 1898 and later wed Joachim Joseph Cooney (1892-1976).

Employed as a carpet layer in Denver from the mid-1880s until after the turn of the century, Richard W. Hill decided to pack up his family, after thirty-five years in Colorado, and move them farther west — to Los Angeles County, California, where he then became a farmer and an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic’s Bartlett-Logan Post.

By the early 1930s, he was receiving a U.S. Civil War Pension of one hundred dollars per month.

On 6 January 1931, Richard W. Hill and his wife commemorated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at their home at 1316 West Fifty-first Place in Los Angeles with a family dinner and a large celebration. Among the five hundred guests who attended was “Mrs. Delia Arnold, the only surviving person who was a guest at their wedding in Chicago on January 6, 1881,” according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Illness, Death and Interment

Ailing with prostate cancer during his final years, Richard W. Hill was admitted to the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Los Angeles on 3 August 1931. Physicians also noted that he was hearing impaired, and that he was an eighty-one-year-old farmer who was five feet, four inches tall with blue eyes, gray hair and a fair complexion.

While hospitalized, he contacted bronchopneumonia, and died at the Soldiers’ Home in Los Angeles County at the age of eighty-one, on 14 August 1931. Following funeral services at the Bramble Funeral Church in South Toberman, he was laid to rest at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, Los Angeles County, California.

Richard Hill’s widow, Georgiana Frances (Pike) Hill, survived him by more than a decade. After a long, full life, she died in Los Angeles County at the age of eighty-seven, on 29 February 1944, and was laid to rest beside her husband at that county’s Inglewood Park Cemetery.

What Happened to the Children of Richard W. Hill?

Researchers have not yet determined what happened to Richard W. Hill’s oldest son, Eugene B. Hill after his marriage to Susie B. Young in 1906.

Richard W. Hill’s son, Richard Thomas Hill (1883-1922), who had wed Jessie Emma Woodworth (1885-1951) on 18 September 1904, welcomed the birth with her of daughter Marguerite June Hill circa 1907. By 1910, the trio were residing in Denver, where Richard T. Hill worked as a plumber. Subsequently divorced from his wife on 6 January 1921, he relocated to Los Angeles County, California, where he died at the age of thirty-eight, and was interred at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood. He was survived by his second wife, Reubie J. Hill, and several siblings, according to his death notice.

Richard W. Hill’s daughter, Alice Leah Hill (1889-1974), who had wed William Andrew Love (1891-1919) in Denver on 12 November 1913, subsequently welcomed the Denver births with him of: Frances G. Love (1914-1992), who was born on 21 August 1914 and later wed Melvin W. Redhead of Reno, Nevada; and Alice Elizabeth Love (1918-1920), who was born on 23 July 1918. Widowed by her husband, William A. Love, when he passed away in Denver at the age of twenty-seven, in January 1919, Alice Leah (Hill) Love moved to Los Angeles County, California with her two daughters, and settled in at her parents’ home. While there, she then suffered a second tragedy when her namesake daughter, Alice E. Love, died in Los Angeles, one month before her second birthday. By 1930, she had remarried — to Fred Stratton Price (1888-1964) — and had settled with him in Los Angeles County. Also residing with Alice and her second husband was her daughter from her first marriage, Frances G. Love. Alice Leah (Hill Love) Price and her second husband, Fred Price, then welcomed the Los Angeles County births of their own children: Paul Hill Price (1923-2002), who was born on 27 July 1923 and was later known as Delbert Paul Price; and William John Price (1926-2013), who was born on 30 June 1926 and later served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 1930, she was residing in Los Angeles with her husband, their two sons, and her daughter from her first marriage, but then divorced her husband later that decade. Employed as a seamstress in 1940, she was a lodger residing with her son, John William Price, at the home of welder Robert Abraham Godlove (1885-1980) in Inglewood, Los Angeles County. Following her third marriage — to Robert A. Godlove in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1942, she continued to live with him until her death at the age of eighty-seven in West Covina, Los Angeles County, on 7 January 1974. Following funeral services, Alice Leah (Hill Love Price) Godlove was laid to rest at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Covina.

Richard W. Hill’s son, John Edwin Hill (1891-1973), who had been employed as a laborer at a dairy while still living with his parents in Denver in 1910, wed Dorothy T. Tuck in Denver on 25 June 1913. Together, they welcomed the Denver births of: Ruth Ida Hill (1908-1986), who was born on 20 January 1908 and later wed Harol Albert O’Connor (1904-1982); Dorothy Joan Hill (1914-1985), who was born on 19 June 1914 and later wed Warren Finley McQueen in Pasadena, California on 15 June 1940; and Vivian Louise Hill (1917-1999), who was born on 4 January 1917 and later wed Durand Fields, Jr.

By 1920, John Edwin Hill was residing in the city of Los Angeles with his wife, Dorothy, and their children, Ruth, Joan and Vivian. They then welcomed the births of: Georgia Lee Hill who was born circa 1924; and Edna Mae Hill (1926-2013), who was born on 21 June 1926 and later wed John David English (1964-2007). Widowed by his first wife, Dorothy Ida (Critchell Tuck) Hill on 10 November 1937, John Edwin Hill subsequently married Hazel Olive Gray (1895-1987), and continued to reside with her in Los Angeles County until his death at the age of eighty-two on 15 November 1973. He was then laid to rest at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, Los Angeles County.

Richard W. Hill’s daughter, Ruth Helen Hill (1894-1975), who later wed engineer George William Henderson (1890-1943) and settled with him in Denver, Colorado, soon welcomed the births of: Ruth Mary Henderson, who was born circa 1917; Ralph William Henderson (1918-2010), who was born on 2 July 1918 and later wed Helen Elnora Huhn (1922-1992); and Helen E. Henderson (1925-2010), who was born on 29 April 1925 and later wed Harry James Weston (1926-2007). By 1930, Ruth and her husband had moved their children to the community of Edgewater in Jefferson County, Colorado, where her husband was employed as an electrician by the public school system, and where their son, George Adam Henderson (1931-1979), was born on 10 July 1931. After a long life, Ruth (Hill) Henderson died in the city of Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California in July 1975. Her remains were then transported to Denver, Colorado for interment at the Fairmount Cemetery.

Richard W. Hill’s daughter, Frances Emily Hill (1898-1986), who later wed Joachim Joseph Cooney (1892-1976) in 1928, welcomed the Los Angeles County births with him of: Patricia June Cooney, who was born on 22 June 1933; and Richard Joseph Cooney (1936-2004), who was born on 1 February 1936. Residents of the city of Los Angeles during the 1940s, she and her family had settled in the city of Long Beach in Los Angeles County by 1950, where, according to that year’s federal census, her husband was employed as the assistant officer in charge of that county’s U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service branch, and where Frances was employed by an automobile seat manufacturing company as a finishing inspector. Widowed by her husband in 1976, Frances Emily (Hill) Cooney survived him by nearly a decade. Following her death in Los Angeles County at the age of eighty-seven, on 3 January 1986, she was laid to rest at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County.

 

Sources:

1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1: “Fourty-Seventh.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
2. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 4: “One Hundred and Fifty-Ninth, Fourteenth Cavalry.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1870.
3. Cooney, Joachim J., Frances E. (a daughter of Richard W. Hill), Patricia J., and Richard J., in U.S. Census (Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California, 1950). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
4. Delbert Paul Price (a grandson of Richard W. Hill and a son of Alice Leah (Hill Love) Price, in U.S. Social Security Death Index, 2002. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
5. Dorothy Joan Macqueen (a granddaughter of Richard W. Hill and a daughter of John E. Hill), in U.S. Social Security Death Index (San Diego County, November 1985). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
6. Godlove, Robert Sr. and Robert Jr.; and Price, Alice Leah and John William, in U.S. Census (Inglewood, Los Angeles County, California, 1940). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
7. Henderson, George W., Ruth (a daughter of Richard W. Hill), Ruth Mary, and Ralph, in U.S. Census (Denver City, Denver County, Colorado, 1920). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
8. “Hill-McQueen Vows Exchanged in Church of Angels, Pasadena” (wedding announcement of Dorothy Joan Hill, a granddaughter of Richard W. Hill and a daughter of John E. Hill). St. Cloud, Minnesota: Daily Times and Daily Journal Press, 25 June 1940.
9. Hill, John E. (a son of Richard W. Hill) and Tuck, Dorothy T., in Marriage Records (Denver, Arapahoe County, Colorado, 25 June 1913). State of Colorado, Division of Vital Statistics.
10. Hill, John E. (a son of Richard W. Hill), Dorothy, Ruth I., Joan, and Vivian; and Critchell, Ida (Dorothy’s mother), in U.S. Census (Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, 1920). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
11. Hill, Richard, in Registers of Enlistments, U.S. Army, 1866. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
12. “Hill, Richard W.” (death and funeral notice). Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles Times, 16 August 1931.
13. Hill, Richard T. (a son of Richard W. Hill) and Woodworth, Jessie M., in Marriage Records (Denver, Colorado, 18 September 1904). Denver, Colorado: State of Colorado, Division of Vital Statistics.
14. Hill, Richard T. (a son of Richard W. Hill) and Jessie E. Hill, in Divorce Records (Denver, Colorado, 6 January 1921). Denver, Colorado: State of Colorado, Division of Vital Statistics.
15. Hill, Richard T. (a son of Richard W. Hill), Jessie E. and Margarite, in U.S. Census (Denver City, Denver County, Colirado, 1910). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
16. Hill, Richard W., Francis G., Eugene B., Richard T., Alice L., John E., Ruth H., and Frances E., in U.S. Census (Denver City, Precinct Four, Arapahoe County, Colorado, 1900). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
17. Hill, Richard W., Georgiana, Alice L., John E., Ruth H., Frances E., and Richard W. (grandson), in U.S. Census (Denver City, Precinct Twelve, Arapahoe County, Colorado, 1910). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
18. Hill, Richard W., Frances (mother) and Frances E. (daughter). Love, Alice L. (daughter) and and Frances G. and Alice E. (daughters of Alice, and granddaughters of Richard W. Hill); and Alice Fyfe (sister-in-law of Richard W. Hill), in U.S. Census (Los Angeles City, Los Angeles County, California, 1920). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
19. Hill, Richard and Georgina, in U.S. Civil War Pension General Index Cards (veteran’s application no.: 1087057, certificate no.: 837193, filed by the veteran ftom Colorado, 1892; widow’s application no.: 1700620, certificate no.: A-4-12-32, filed by the widow from California, 18 August 1931). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
20. “John E. Hill Home Scene of Party Honoring Newlyweds” (report on a party held at the home of Richard W. Hill’s son, John, for Richard W. Hill’s daughter, Alice L. (Hill) Godlove). Los Angeles, California: The Southwest Wave, 16 October 1942.
21. Mrs. G. Frances Hill (widow of Richard W. Hill), in “Deaths.” Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles Times, 2 March 1944.
22. “Pair Fifty Years Wed Celebrate: Five Hundred Felicitate Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Hill on Marriage Anniversary.” Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles Times, 7 January 1931.
23. Paul H. Price (a grandson of Richard W. Hill and a son of Alice Leah (Hill Love) Price), in California Birth Index (Los Angeles County, California, 27 July 1923). Sacramento, California: California Department of Public Health.
24. Price, Fred S., Alice L. (a daughter of Richard W. Hill), Frances G., Paul H., and William J., in U.S. Census (Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, 1930). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
25. Richard Hill, in Admissions Ledgers, U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (Los Angeles, California, 1931). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
26. Richard Hill, in U.S. Veterans’ Administration Master Index (date of birth: 30 September 1848, date of death: 14 August 1931). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
27. Richard Thomas Hill (a son of Richard W. Hill), in Death Notices. Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles Times, 12 May 1922.
28. Schmidt, Lewis G. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.
29. “The History of the Forty-Seventh Regt. P. V.” Allentown, Pennsylvania: The Lehigh Register, 20 July 1870.
30. William John Price (a grandson of Richard W. Hill and a son of Alice Leah (Hill Love) Price), in California Birth Index (Los Angeles County, California, 30 June 1926). Sacramento, California: California Department of Public Health.