By Eva Hill Lesueur Karling
Looking back into the past we sometimes thrill to the sublime sactrifices and purposes
of lives that perhaps at the time seem ordinary and common place.  Look back with me now for a little while to
a faraway time when Hills Prairie lay in primeval beauty passing luxuriously
from season to season, from year to year. 
To the east the Colorado wound its swift southward course.  Cedar Creek with it's tributaries of Sandy,
Walnut and the Spring Branch, fertilized and refreshed the land.  Cool springs bubbled up here and there,
furnishing pure, clear water for all its wild inhabitants.  Herds of buffalo and deer drank
unafraid.  Flocks of wild turkey roamed
through its under growth.  Droves of
wild mustang led by a wary leader grazed upon its abundant pasture.  Wild bees stores their nectar in the
cavities of trees and rocks.  Wild
pigeons, quails and doves were here for there where none here then who called
it sport to kill God's creatures.  There
were many native fruits, vegetables and nuts. 
And just as wild and free as any of these roamed the Red Man through its
fertile bounds.
The Tonkaway tribe of Indians claimed this as their own Magnificent specimens of
physical brawn and build, they held it through many hard fought battles with
other tribes, for this section was coveted by Cherokees, Chickasaws, comanches,
Karankoways and others.  They all made
pilgrimages here at intervals.  From the
plentiful supply of flint rock which lay along the creeks and river they
prepared for warfare and hunting by making arrow heads; hickory and bois d'arc
supplied wood for their bows, the skins of deer, beaver, fox, bear, squirrel,
and buffalo furnished their robes and bedding. 
In this way the centuries passed. 
There are still many evidences of their camps to be found and many arrow
heads from the tiniest to the largest have gone from here to museums, schools
and colleges.
Then the white men came - saw its beauty and desirability and adventurous and
courageous ones staid and built their log cabins on land allotted to them by
the Mexican Government.  The first we
have any knowledge of who built their stronghold in this prairie were Elisha M.
Barton and Edwards Jenkins.  Authorities
seem to differ as to which plowed the first furrows in the valley.  Barton's league of land included the Clif
Hubbard farm.  His cabin is where their
home now is.  Edward Jenkins built his
cabin near the Spring Branch and with his family cleared a patch for cotton,
corn and potatoes.  Two years later in
the spring of 1833, John Gilmer McGehee with his brother Thomas G. McGehee, prospected
through Texas.  They were so enthused
with the beauty and fertility of this section that they returned home and John
G. McGehee organized a colony of 140 Georgians and Alabamians and they started
at once for Mina, reaching San Augustine in October, 1834 and Mina in January,
1835.  Mrs. John G. McGehee was Sarah
Hill before her marriage.  When they
reached their destination they at once began to build houses and forts for
protection against Indian depredations. 
Life for them was full of interest and excitement.  Indian raids became more frequent and
many times women and children for miles around were housed for days at a time in the
strong stockade while the men went out to regain their stolen horses and
cattle.  Several times they recovered
captured women and children.
Thomas
B. J. Hill and Middleton Hill, brothers of Mrs. Sarah Hill McGehee bought land
east of Mina, which was later known as Lower Hills Prairie.  After a few months they returned
to Georgia.  Their younger brother, Wylie
Hill was so thoroughly infatuated with life in this new land that he determined
to cast his lot with these other adventurous souls.  He bought 2220 acres of land from Mrs.
Sarah Jenkins, widow of Edward Jenkins.  The date of the transaction
as recorded is July 7, 1835, State of Coahuila, Dept. of Brazos, Jurisdiction
of Mina, in the Colony of Stephen F. Austin.
Then came the Massacre of Goliad and the Fall of the Alamo.  Quoting from early settlers
written by the Hon. George T. McGehee of San Marcos. 
"The storm was gathering in the land of the Montezumas.  The mutterings could be heard; the
Butcher, Santa Anna was marshalling his hosts to sweep these brave pioneers from the
face of Texas soil.  His emissaries were
among the Indians, exciting them to plunder and murder.  Every full moon witnessed their
forays in the valleys of the Colorado, Brazos and Guadalupe.  Early in 1836 it was known
that the armies of Mexico were on their march to the Texas border. Organizations were formed
and hastened to meet them.  John T. McGehee had been severely
wounded in the battle of Concepcion in October 1835, and had not fully
recovered.  He was the only mature man
left in Mina.  Wild consternation seized
the people who had concentrated in the strong stockade. Not able to go out to
meet the invaders, John McGehee bent all his energies to getting what
transportation there was in shape to move these helpless women and children to
a place of safety.  With only a few
hours to prepare and pack what few belongings they could take with them, the memorable
"Runaway Scrape commenced.  Through
rain, mud and cold he hurried these panic stricken people east.  Couriers rushed along the
road each day with information that the Mexicans were in hot pursuit.  Despair and fright
seized the people, but the cool head and the indomitable energy of this man who had induced
so many of these people to cast their lot in this distant land, triumphed, and the whole
caravan reached the Trinity River where they were in comparative safety."
Thomas
G. McGehee (whose wife was Minerva Hunt, of the family for whom Huntsville,
Alabama, was named, joined Capt. Jesse Billingsley's company and was put in
charge of a company near where New Braunfels now is.  It was his duty to notify the settlers
of approaching danger.  When the sound of the first cannon came booming over the hills, he
sent couriers to warn them.  Then he and other companies were ordered...   ...he sent couriers
to warn them. Then he and other companies were ordered to concentrate on the Brazos, so
asa to form as large a defensive force as possible.  Mrs. Minerva Hunt McGehee in relating
her experience of the "Runaway Scrape" said:
"One evening in camp, I was weary and heartsick - my husband perhaps in mortal
danger, far from home, most of our provisions and all of our money gone - I
felt that only death or worse than death, capture by the hated Comanches,
awaited me.  As I sat thus with my two helpless infants and a slave, apart from the other
campers, I heard horses' hoofs, and looking up saw a splendid specimen of young manhood
approaching.  He stopped as he reached
me and asked if I were the wife of Thomas G. McGehee.  On hearing that I was he sprang from
his horse, saying that his name was Wylie Hill, a cousin, and he was hurrying to join Sam
Houstons army.  This meeting and his kind, encouraging words were as the balm of Golead to my
heart. 
He divided his purse with me and hastened on."
(In the battle of San Jacinto a bullet passed through his cap) Gen. John R. Baylor and
Gen. Buck Hardeman, who were with him at San Jacinto, said of him in after years,
that no braver soldier ever went into battle.
When
the news of the capture of Santa Anna reached those refugees on the Trinity, we
can imagine what shouts of thanksgiving and praise ascended from their camps
and with what joy they turned their faces homeward.  But many found their homes and
possessions destroyed.  And life in this wilderness had to be started almost anew.
Miss Ann Jenkins of Bastrop says that she remembers hearing her father, John
Jenkins, say that they all lived for a time on peas left in the pea patch of
Mr. And Mrs. McGehee.
In the winter of 1836 Wylie Hill returned to Georgia and on February 10, 1837, married
his sweetheart, Evaline Hubbard, the eldest daughter of the Hon. Robert Hubbard
of Lexington, a member of the Georgia Legislature and former Captain of Militia
in that state. With a good number of slaves given them by both his and her
families, they embarked for far away Texas on Feb. 16, 1837, he just 21 and she
19.  A gentle slip of a girl, she had
known no hardships or privation, I marvel when I consider what courage and love
must have animated her heart.
Some writers and sculptors have depicted the pioneer Texas women as hardy, brawny,
and rough.  There were some of this type of course.  But the pioneer women
mentioned here where in this, or any other period could there be found more
refined, cultured women, higher types of Christian womanhood than the Hill,
McGehee, Hubbard, Pope, and Caldwell women, Dr .Thrall, the historian says of
Mrs. T. B. J. Hill, Mrs. Wiley Hill, Mrs. Middleton Hill and Mrs. John
Caldwell, "They are elect ladies."
It took them nine days to cross the gulf from New Orleans, La., to Columbia,
Texas.  There the entire company
remained in camp two months, waiting for water courses to subside.  Then the slow, toilsome
trip by ox team to Mina, and it was the middle of May before they reached the home of Mr. Hill's
sister, Mrs. McGehee at Hills Prairie. 
How foreign was life for her in this new land and how she must have
longed for her home in Georgia! But building and planning absorbed the days and
the country threw its glamour over her, too, for in spite of anxious days and
sometimes nights of terror, she wrote glowing accounts of the country to her
relatives.  She was a wonderful manager.  Among the slaves given her by
Mr. Hill's mother was a little six year old girl, with the admonition that she
was to be brought up in the house and trained as a maid and seamstress and Mary
Ann did credit to her old mistress's foresight and interest and to her young
mistress's instruction.  She was taken
back to Georgia on several trips during the years and attained a dignity and
poise that was remarkable.  She lived to a good old age, will be remembers by many Mrs.
Hill told of a time when all alone except for some of her slaves and her two year old
daughter, the frightened Negroes ran in with the startling information that Indians were
coming.  She was sure they were friendly
Indians but they were Indians! And so they barred the doors and window
shutters, but she sent a Negro through the brush at the back of the house for
Mr. Jesse Holderman, and then to calm the frightened Negroes she sat down and
took up her sewing.  One Indian called to her asking for whisky.  She told him
she had none.  He said, "Maybe you
lie." Just at this time Mr. Holderman galloped up with his gun and told
them to "vamoose" which they did. 
When they were gone it was discovered that they had taken every bright
colored garment from the clothes line in the yard and she found that in her
excitement instead of sewing, she had ripped out every hand run tuck she had so
carefully put in her little daughter's dress.
(This Mr. Holderman had married Miss Harriet Creaft and lived where the Cliff Hubbard
home now is. Mrs. Holderman after her husband's death married Mr. Campbell
Taylor and was the mother of Mrs. R. B. Wilkes and grandmother of T. P. Haynie
and Mrs. Lizzie Owens)
(In 1838 John G. McGehee died in the prime of a most useful manhood)
The first religious services held in Hills Prairie were those by Rev. John Haynie,
Dr. Thrall and Dr. Ruter in the Hill and McGehee homes.  In the spring of 1835 a Methodist
church was organized in Mina.  Mrs. Sarah Hill
McGehee and Mrs. Minerva Hunt McGehee were charter members.  In 1842 Bishop Morris drove up
to the Hill home bringing with him Rev. Josiah Whipple, a young minister sent from Illinois
to Texas as a missionary.  Bishop Morris
left him with this family and told him one of the big trees which surrounded
the house would make a fine place for him to study.  He must have employed his time well, for
no man who has come
after him has exceeded him in wisdom and knowledge and zeal.  When he was an old man I heard
people lament that his knowledge would have to die with him. 
A wonderful man, gentle and courtly, full of wisdom in the service of
his Master, walking unharmed where a less consecrated man would have been
ensnared.  He traveled the Austin
Circuit two years, swimming swollen streams through Indian infested country,
enduring hardships and privations with undaunted spirit.  "He was a great gospel preacher and
it was said that when he prayed the very portals of Heaven seemed to open
up." In 1845 he married Mrs. Sarah McGehee.  Perhaps there was never a more congenial couple,
but only five years of companionship were allowed them as she died in 1850.  Her grave was
made under the big tree where he had loved so much to mediate and study - the first grave in
the "yard of the dead" by the Hill homestead. 
In 1853 their only child Wilber, was drowned in the Colorado River at
Camp Ground Ford and was laid by the side of his mother.  The Texas Annual Conference was in
session
at the time in Bastrop and it adjourned and attended the funeral in a body.
Bishop Paine conducted the service. (These items I take from Thrall's History
of Methodism and Phelan's History of Methodism).  Phelan's History gives an account of the
dedication of the new church in Bastrop in 1851.  "Quiet
and unobserved in the congregation sat the man to whom more than to any other
perhaps than to all others - we are indebted for this beautiful temple, I mean
our energetic and talented Elder Whipple."  He asked to take no part in the public service as
his beloved wife had passed away a short time before. 
She had willed him a large part of her land holdings and he ever used
his means and talents for the good of humanity.  He occupied every important pulpit in the
Conference, was presiding elder for many years, was elected to General Conference many times
and died at his home at Austin when eighty years of age.  An old faded note written by him in
1846 to Mr. And Mrs. Wylie Hill gives them many expressions of thanks and love for all
they and their home had meant to him through the years. 
In 1845
and addition was built to the log cabin of the Wylie Hill home of real lumber,
sealed and painted, and Mrs. Hill said that she was proud of that addition than
she was of the big house which was built in 1856 and 1857.  There are many interesting
innocents connected with the building of this old colonial home. Mr. Adolf Jung who came
to Bastrop in 1855 was the brick mason who built the four tall chimneys at each
end of the house with fireplaces upstairs and down.  While he was at work on these chimneys
his twin boys, Alf and Gus, were born.  In 1885 one of the
chimneys was repaired by those twins, and Mr. Gus Jung said that they tried to
do it as nearly like their father's work as possible.  The bricks for these chimneys were
burnt on the place.  Mr. Hancke, of Lockhart, who was born in
Bastrop, said his father with Mr. George Orts and others were at work for
eighteen months on the house.  Every
piece of lumber and timber put into the house was inspected and hand
dressed.  One cabinet maker made all the
blinds, stair railing, doors, mantles and window frames. He afterwards became a
great Methodist preacher and editor o the New Orleans Advocate.
Between 1845 and 1850 Mrs. Hill's mother, Mrs. Nancy Hubbard, and her three brothers,
Miller, Gus and Robert, and her sister, Damarius, who later married John W.
Pope of Austin, came to Texas and settled at Hills Prairie.  With the coming of these and
other families,
such as Major A. W. Moore, Mr. R. J. Price, Marsh and Lance Trigg, H. K.
McDonald, the neighborhood developed into a cultured and aristocratic
community, known far and wide for its hospitality, wealth and refinement - a
reputation that endured for many years after the close of the civil war.
In 1845
Texas came into the Union and everything was bright and prosperous.  The small patches of corn and cotton had
spread to wide acres of beautiful cultivated fields, and such yields as they
produced!  For the land had been storing
for ages the elements for their production. 
No weeds were allowed to grow even in the fence corners, for slaves big
and little, were kept busy and while they worked their voices floated over the
fields in song and chants.  In 1843 Mr.
Hill installed the first cotton gin. 
The best school advantages obtainable were given the children.  First among the outstanding
teachers was Prof. Morgan and woe to the child who did not know how to spell every word in
the "blue back speller.", multiplication tables and the capitals of
the states.  The school house was built
near the Spring Branch and children came from miles around.  Tom Anderson Hill, son of T. B.
J. Hill, and Jim Oliver, nephew stayed in the home of Mr. Wylie Hill and attended this
school.  Prof. Wise was one of the teachers highly spoken of.
Mary Parks Hill, the eldest daughter, graduated from Georgia Female College at
Madison, GA., in 1855.  She returned to
Texas with her sister Sallie who had also attended college in Penfield.  In 1856 Mary Parks
Hill was married to Dr.
John Watson of South Caroling, whom she had met while in college.  The "Old South" was now
in its heyday.  Parties, dinners, infairs, was the custom.  Relatives and friends came from
miles and there was always room for every one. In 1859 Sallie Hill was married
to W. C. Powell from Holly Springs, Miss.Mr. Hill gave these daughters large farms and
slaves as bridal presents,
besides mules, horses, cows, etc. How little did they dream that the dark days
of strife were drawing near and nearer and that these glamorous and prosperous
times were to be only memory!
Dr. and Mrs. Watson's children were Eva, L. W., and Robert Watson; Mr. And Mrs. Powell
had but the one daughter, Sallie, who married Mr. W. A. McCord.
RobertTheus Hill, eldest son was a student of the Bastrop Military Institute and of
Rutersville College.  When the first call was sounded for the southern soldiers, he enlisted
at the age of 20 years
in Co. D. Terry's Texas Rangers, and was Second Sergeant.  Bob Hill as he was called, was
captured in battle and was exchanged.  The captured
again and confined in the prison of Rock Hill, Ill.  There he suffered every discomfort of
cold and hunger that can be imagined.  After the war was over and
the other men returned home he was given up as dead by all but his mother.  She said, "No,
Bobby is not dead, I feel that he is alive."  Then a
rumor reached them that he was not dead. 
Mr. Wylie Hill rode up to the John Caldwell home to tell his son't
sweetheart, Lou Caldwell, what they had heard, for he knew that her heart was
aching over her lover's absence.  But
the months lengthened into almost a year and he had not returned. One day the
family were at dinner and Mrs. Hill jumped up suddenly from the table
exclaiming, "Bobby has come!" And it was so.  Her mother heart and ears had heard his
quick step on the walk before anyone else had heard anything.  He had been released from
prison, sick and
weak, and with no money and it had taken him months to make his way home.
He and
Lou Caldwell were married in October 1865. 
He was a steward of the Methodist Church in Austin for many years.  A farmer and stock man
on a large scale.  He died in 1896, his wife in 1924.  Their children are Charles W. Hill of
Austin, who married Miss Tinnie Burleson, Walter Hubbard Hill of Dallas and
Mrs. Annie Hill Snyder and Dr. John C. Hill, deceased.
The
second son of Mr. And Mrs. Wylie Hill was Augustus Middleton Hill. When the war
broke out he was only 14 years of age. 
He continued his studies for two years in the Bastrop Military
Academy.  When the call was so urgent he
enlisted at the age of 16 years in Walker's Division, De Bray's Regiment, and
was later transferred to Terry's Texas Rangers.  In the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant
Hill he had two horses
shot under him and he was sent with other wounded soldiers to the plantation
home of John Holmes of De Soto Parish La., to recuperate.  There he found a welcome indeed,
for the Holmes, Hill, and Pope families were related. 
There one of the war time romances had its beginning.  He fell in love with the eldest
daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Holmes.  After the war
was over, through six busy years, they kept up a correspondence, while he
attended Baylor University at Waco, the University of Virginia and took his
medical degree at the University of New York, serving a few months as interne
in Belview Hospital.  She was a student
at Mansfield College when the war came on. The school was closed and used as a
hospital after the Battle of Mansfield. 
After the war was over and the school was opened again, she returned to
Manasfield, graduating there with honors. 
On 1870, October 27th., they were married in her father's home amid
festivities to which were invited all the neighbors near and far, including
also the employees of his lumber mills and store.  A sumptuous banquet was served to all. 
From Shreveport they sailed down the Red River and the
Mississippi to New Orleans on their wedding journey to Texas.  From New Orleans to Galveston
on the Gulf
and from Galveston to Bastrop by rail and stage coach.  After a three months visit to Dr.
Hill's
parents they returned to Louisiana and settled at Keichei where they lived two
years.  In 1873, her father having
passed away, they returned to Texas and resided at Hill's Prairie until the
spring of 1908.  Dr. "Gus"
Hill endeared himself to hundreds of families scattered through the sparsely
settled communities and isolated settlements, riding horseback in response to
calls of sick and wounded at all hours of the day and night and in all kinds of
weather, often swimming the swollen streams, carrying in his saddlebags not
only the instruments with which to perform every variety of emergency operation,
but also the medicines with which to fill his own prescriptions - for drug
stores in those days were few and service had not so much as been born far
between and modern delivery in anyone's imagination.  "Much obliged to you, 'Doc', until you
are better paid," was the usual reward for services, though this was frequently
supplemented by a load of wood, of which there was abundance on every hand.
Between Mrs. Hill and Dr. Hill's mother, who made her home with them until her death in
1894, a deep and tender attachment grew. 
Into this home seven children were born.  In the midst of her household duties Mrs. Hill found
the time to edit "Home Tidings", the official organ of the Texas conference
Woman's Missionary Society, to edit also special columns in two other
periodicals, and to contribute hundreds of articles on woman's suffrage,
rehabilitation of prisoners, prohibition of the liquor traffic and of the white
slave trade, and other phases of social reform.  At the age of eighty-nine, Mrs. Hill resides
in Bastrop and is greatly loved by both old and young.
Of the seven children born to Dr. and Mrs. Hill, only two survived the ravages of
those malignant forms of malaria with which the low lands along our rivers and
creeks were then infested.
On August fifth, 1900, I was married to Charles N. LeSueur.  In 1908 he died.  Our son, Tylie
Hill LeSueur was married in July 1932 to Miss
Mabel Dawson, daughter of Mr. And Mrs. W. B. Dawson of Bastrop, and they reside
in Bastrop.  In 1915 I became Mrs. David
Karling.  My brother, Benjamin Ogilvie
Hill, became upon his graduation from Southwestern University in 1907 a
missionary under the General Board of the Methodist Eposcopal Church. South, in
Cuba, where he served for twenty-two years, during fifteen years of which he was
president of Pinson College at Comaguey. 
In 1910 he took as his bride, Miss Ethel Star Ellis, a teacher in the
Eliza Bowman School, at Cienfuegos, one of the mission board's schools for
girls, a daughter of the Rev. H. J. Ellis of Atlanta Georgia.  Since their return from Cuba
in 1929, they
have been at the Lydia Patterson Institute, of El Paso, Texas, a school under
the auspices of the Board of Missions for the training of young ministers.
And
other Christian workers, where my brother is dean of the department of
Theology. Their two daughters, Harriet and Sarah Elizabeth, are respectively
Mrs. James P Turner and Mrs. Emmett Reese, both of El Paso.