From the Memoirs of Ben O. Hill  

I’M Born

December 15, 1883

My sister, Eva (Tia), was twelve years old, very pretty and vivacious. She was looking forward to Christmas, less than two weeks off. “Across the creek” from the Hills lived the Prices. Stella Price was Eva’s chum and it was a mutual delight when one of them could visit in the home of the other.

It suited the convenience of Eva’s mother to let her spend two or three days with Stella just at this time. One the morning of December 15, Grandpa Hill (known to neighbors as “Col.” A.W. or Wylie) went to bring Eva home, and he had great news for her: During the previous night two baby brothers had arrived. How they had come was a mystery; perhaps the stork had brought them. (Eva probably knew more about such matters than the old folk supposed.)

The twins were named Benjamin Ogilvie and Blanton Holmes. Ben must have been the more robust of the two, for “Old Aunt Martha” (the Negro nurse) said: “Jes Look at him, ain’t he mannish”.  Ben does not remember Blanton, though it was said that they had a peculiar way of calling each other and answering. Less than two years after their birth Blanton died. Ben would call and listen and listen wondering what had become of his brother.

Bud and Laura

When I was four or five years old Bud was my companion and my playmate; his sister Laura was my first nursemaid---at least the first that I remember. They were children of our cook and lived with their mother in a cabin in the corner of the big yard, about a hundred yards from our house. I don’t remember anything about their father, and maybe there was no such person. Bud was near my age, possibly a year or two older, and Laura was 11 or 12. She had a lively imagination, and seemed to enjoy being in charge of me. One thing we never seemed to tire of was “driving” in the surrey which stood in the carriage house. Our “horses” were tireless and very fleet. We probably did not know that the earth was round, but our travels would have circled it many times, and we visited all the places we knew about. 

Bud was my shadow and my faithful slave. My little red wagon was my carriage and Bud was a willing horse. He never asked to ride; that would never have occurred to a little Negro boy. But I remember one sad day when Bud and I were bringing in some stove wood, a piece fell off the wagon and I told him to pick it up. He said; “you pick it up”. I must have had a high temper and an ugly idea about my place as a white boy and his place as a little Negro, for I picked up a clod of dirt and hit him; he picked up a stick of stovewood and hit me; my mother thought Bud’s mother ought to whip him for hitting a white boy. Bud’s mother didn’t think so, as the little white boy had hit the first blow. This was my first fight , brief though it was, the consequences were long lasting; we lost our cook, and I lost my two playmates. I loved all three of them and cried when they left.

Our Kitchen

We were never without a cook for long at a time. The community was full of Negro women, and most of them were good cooks. Many of them were descendants of the Hill slaves, and never moved away or lived anywhere else. It was my delight as a small boy to listen to tales of “old times” of my grandfather; what a strong man he was and how he had killed a bear with his knife jumping from the top of a cliff to a shelf below, where the bear was reared back against the cliff, catching and killing his hounds as fast as they came within his reach. (Eva and other accounts say this was a panther, and Libby still has the knife which was passed on to her mother by Ben.)  Tales of my father and his two sisters and brothers when they were young people: how my father had gone off to war when he was only fifteen (Augustus “Gus”); how he had his horse shot from under him at the Battle of Mansfield; and how the very next day, in the Battle of Pleasant Hill, another horse was shot from under him! Only the fact that the second horse belonged to his brother-in-law and his brother-in-law’s saddle stirrups were shorter than his own, so that his leg was bent, only this fact kept his leg from being broken, for the bullet that killed the horse passed through the leather stirrup.

(Reference to Mary Ann…crossed with Eva’s memoirs.)

They said when my father started off to war, his “mammy” (that is his negro nurse) hugged and kissed him and gave him a ten dollar gold piece, telling him “don’t never spend it unless you have to; you may be taken prisoner, then you will need it.)  I remember that this Negro woman came to visit us when I was about 10 years old. She was a real lady, and we treated her as we would have treated the Queen of England. My sister mentions her visit in the “Years that Have Flown” (Verified that this was Mary Ann, but we don’t have last name.)

The Big House (From the memoirs of Ben O. Hill

The house was completed in 1856. The former log cabin was attached to the rear by means of a hallway and served as kitchen and lock-room.  A description of the house would be in order, I think. There was a porch extending all the way across the front; the roof was supported by six columns; these were square, and had small pedestals at the bottom and small capitals at the top. The ceiling of the roof was sky blue, the rest of the house was white, with green blinds; there were four large windows in the front, three on each side, four tall chimneys at the sides.

The upstairs hall opened on a small balcony; the floor of the hall was stenciled with gray and green designs. My room was upstairs, the southwest room. Years before, a Mr. Russell had died in that room and the Negros of the neighborhood, who were very superstitious, believed that he could still be seen at windows.

When the "Katy" trains, in rounding the curve after crossing the bridge at night, threw the light of their headlights on the windows, the effect was eerie. I remember one occasion when I was with a group of Negros returning from work in the fields, how they broke and ran with wild cries upon seeing the reflections of the headlight in the window of the upstairs room. The Negros never made the association in the minds between the trains, four miles away, and the lights in the windows.

(Note: We don't know who Mr. Russell is, but he is buried in the big grave in the graveyard.)

Sarah McGehee Hill (mother of Abram Wiley Hill)

Sarah Frances (Mom) has a large portrait of her great-great-great-great grandmother which was painted by a famous artist in New York.  This Sarah was married to Thomas Hill, Wylie Hill’s father.  The portrait was painted when she was a young girl in Georgia.  Sarah and Thomas were married shortly before 1800. She bore him nine children of whom Wyle was the youngest, born February 10, 1816.

Governor George R. Gilmer had this to say about her, “Sallie, the second daughter of Micajah McGehee was the prettiest woman on the frontiers of Georgia, according to frontier taste. Her eyes were large, liquidly bright, with dark, long lashes, shading them so as to add to their fascination. (When you see the portrait…you are not going to believe this is the same girl) Her features were regular and her cheeks, rosy. Her person was straight and all the roundings of her limbs and chest beautifully perfect. She had just begun to run all the young men crazy who saw her, and when she and Tom Hill fancied each other and were married.

A.W. Hill

Grandpa Hill came to Texas with his two older brothers when he was 19 years old. A few months later, April 26, 1836 he was in the Battle of San Jacinto. He was one of the scouts appointed to overtake the escapees from Bastrop, who were fleeing from the advances of the Mexican forces of Santa Ana and told them now they might return to their homes. At San Jacinto, the Mexican forces had been routed and Santa Ana captured.

On his arrival in Texas, he bought land in the valley of the Colorado River, south of Bastrop, which became Hills Prairie, named for him. His two older brothers bought land further down the river near Smithville which became Lower Hills Prairie. He built a log cabin and returned to Georgia for his sweetheart, Evaline Hubbard. They made their way back to Texas in a caravan of ox wagons which took several months to make the trip.  They were accompanied by a number of slaves given to them by their respective families. They brought with them a small four poster bed and a big clock.

Grandpa and a group of other Texans were captured by a band of Indians. They seemed friendly enough, but the Texans could not figure out what their fate would be. Some of the ocmapny said they were to be killed, but one of the Indians who spoke a little English said; “no you will not be killed”. Grandpa had a famous, peculiar yell, and the Indians asked him to give it. They thought it was very amusing and had him give it many times. In the end all of the group were set free and they never had an idea why they were captured.

Evaline Hubbard Hill

Grandma was a Hubbard, and her given name was Evaline. Grandpa had come to Texas from Georgia with two older brothers. After buying land and building a log cabin for a homestead and taking part in the Battle of San Jacinto which won Texas her independence, he returned to Georgia for his bride. The change from a comfortable home in Georgia to a log cabin in the Texas staggers the imagination. I wonder how she could even think of such a thing! She herself must have wondered at times.

Once her courage failed her completely, and she wrote her father in Georgia and asked him to come for her and take her back home. She gave the letter to a cousin to mail for her but almost immediately she repented her lack of courage and was sorry she had written the letter. A few weeks later this cousin asked her to sew a button on his coat, and in the lining she found the letter, which he had evidently “forgotten” to mail. Neither of them ever mentioned the letter or the incident.

One can easily understand how her courage could sometimes fail when one remembers some of the experiences she passed thru.  Once when all the men on the place were absent, some Indians came and asked where they were. The women shut themselves up inside the house, but the Indians kept on talking in their broken English and asking many questions.  Grandma was excited and talked a lot. One of the Indians said to her, “White squaw talkee too mucho; maybe she lie.” On another occasion she was working on a knitted garment, and in all her excitement she unraveled all she had done. On still another occasion, she sent one of the colored maids out the back way, through the fields to a neighbor’s house about a mile away. When the neighbor rode up, the Indians meekly left.

My Mother, Sarah Elizabeth Holmes Hill, by Ben O. Hill

My father was sick with malaria as a soldier in the Louisiana Campaign (Civil War). The Hills and Holmeses had known each other “back in Georgia”. So, when Grandpa Holmes heard about it he went out to the camp and brought the sick solder to Keichei to recuperate. There he met the oldest daughter “Lizzie”, who nursed him back to health. When he left, they corresponded. She had her studies interrupted a Mansfield Female College, when the war broke out, and now she went back and graduated as salutatorian of her class. 

Lizzie and her “doctor” were married in Louisiana in 1870. Grandpa Holmes had a saw mill where many men worked. They and their families were invited to the wedding. The cakes were iced and set aside on a shelf to dry.  The hounds, of which there were always a goodly number, found then and proceeded to like the icing off. It was too late to bake other cakes so the washed them off and re-iced them. The guests never knew the difference. (Yikes)

Grandpa Holmes built and office in the yard for Papa where he would examine his patients and prescribe for them.  But meantime, Grandpa Hill wrote him and told him that if he would come to Hills Prairie to practice and take care of him and Grandmother, he would (make) him sole heir to the old home place, that the other brothers and sisters had already received their share of the estate. So Papa, Mama, and Sister Eva moved from Louisiana to Texas to the house where I was born (Ancient Oaks). As I have said, Grandpa died when I was two or three and Grandma, when I was seven or eight. About that time, Papa was kicked by a cow and his leg broken in the knee.  When he recovered his leg was stiff and he could no longer ride horseback.   

Malaria

The country was full of Malaria, we had chills and fevers, and often there was yellow fever at Galveston, Houston and other places. One year it got as far as LaGrange and some of the kinfolks there ran from it and came up to Cousin Cap Hill's across the river in lower Hills Prairie and two or three died from it. One year a cousin of Grandpa's, Mrs. Mildred Felder who lived in Galveston ran from it and came up to Grandpa's. Fortunately she did not bring it, but we were always  having chills and taking quinine to keep a chill off.

My little sister Emma and I were both very sick. I had a congestive chill. One day, all at once I regained consciousness and saw them take Emma out of the room, but did not know she was dead. Nor did I know anything about the funeral services which were held down at Grandpa's. They usually brought any of the kin there for the funeral services, which they would hold in the parlor. The graveyard was under the big tree that Bishop Morris had told the young preacher, Josiah Whipple would be a good place for him to study. This was the burial place for our family. But there were a few graves in the back of other people. I remember a ____ daughter of a renter was buried- death while burning stalks in the field- and Grandpa let her be buried there. The Trigg graveyard up higher in the Prairie was for that connection.