Vigorous and active at the time of life when the majority of men are compelled by physical disabilities to surrender the cares and responsibilities of their respective callings to their successors of a younger generation, Reynolds Hill, chief engineer of the pumping station at Geneva, is still attending to his daily duties with a regularity and watchfulness which few veterans of the civil war can equal.
Mr. Hill comes from an old Yates county family, his grandfather, Reynolds Hill, for whom he was named, having been an early settler in Reading, that county, and his father. Seth Hill, was an old time lumberman, a Republican and a Universalist, liberal-minded, upright and optimistic. His span of life lapped over into the present century, and full of years he entered into his final rest in 1902. He married Maria Rich, born in 1826, died in 1900. Children: 1. Reynolds, see forward. 2. Ruth Ann, who died aged two years. 3. Jeanette, born May 3, 1845, married Chester Giles, and has one child, who died at the age of twenty years. 4. Maud, born in 1860.
Reynolds Hill, eldest child of Seth and Maria (Rich) Hill, was born in Reading, Schuyler county, New York, May 7, 1841. He attended the public schools at Reading but his educational opportunities were limited, as at the early age of twelve years he began to assume the responsibility of his own support by accepting employment at Beaver Dam, New York, and he later worked for his father in Millport, this state. When fifteen years old he went to work at Havana, and afterward devoted two years to assisting his father in running a boat on the canal. In July, 1862, he enlisted at Elmira in the One Hundred and Forty-first Regiment. New York Volunteers, for service in the civil war, which was ordered to Maryland in the following September and went into winter quarters on Miner’s Hill. He served under Generals Geary and Thomas; was transferred to the One Hundred and Thirty-first New York Volunteers in 1863 with the rank of color-sergeant, and mustered out as such at Elmira, June 9, 1865. After leaving the army he found employment on the lake steamers “John Arnot,” “P. H. Fields” and “A. W. Langdon,” plying Seneca Lake, and having acquired competency as an engineer he was advanced to the position of chief engineer of the steamer “Elmira.” Removing to Bay City, Michigan, he served as chief engineer of several steamers hailing from that port, and he subsequently was employed in the same capacity on large steamers running between Detroit and Buffalo and Chicago. Among the latter were the steamers “Ramapole,” “Oswego” and “Seneca.” In 1903 he resigned his position on the “Seneca” in order to enter the service of the Geneva (New York) water department as chief engineer at the pumping station, and he still retains that responsible post. In politics he is independent. He was made a Mason in the blue lodge at Detroit some twenty years ago, and is now (1910) a member of the chapter and commandery at Geneva.
Mr. Hill married (first) in Geneva, New York, Olivia Andrus. He married (second) July ii, 1904, Lizzie M. Patrick, and has one daughter, Ruth, born in Geneva, September 16, 1905.
Mrs. Lizzie M. (Patrick) Hill was born in the county of Northumberland. England. October 28, 1866. Her father. John Patrick, was born in the some county in 1835, and her mother Ellen (Collins) Patrick, was born in England in 1843. Children: 1. Lizzie M. (now (1910) Mrs. Hill). 2. William E. 3. Mary Ellen, married James Leroy. 4. John P., married Sarah McDole, four sons. 5. Arthur, married and has one child. 6. Frank, married and has one child. 7. Alice Ann, married Albert Rayner and has two children. 8. Emma, married E. Ward and has two children. 9. Cornelius, married Lillian Beals and has one son. 10. Bert.