Andrew P. Hill

Andrew Putnam Hill (1853–1922) was a Californian painter and photographer best known for successfully leading an effort from 1899 to 1902 to save a forest of large redwoods in Big Basin, California, as a public park, the first in what became the California State Park System.

Hill was the only child of Elijah and Jane Hill, both of whom were descended from early American settlers. Born on August 9, 1853, in Porter County, Indiana, he came to California with his uncle when he was fourteen; his father had come West shortly before Andrew's birth but died of exhaustion and exposure after surviving an Indian attack. Although a Protestant, he studied for two years at the Catholic Santa Clara College, (now Santa Clara University) in Santa Clara: one year at high-school level and one at college freshman level. Forced by lack of funds to leave, he worked as a draftsman, then entered the California School of Design in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1875.

In 1876 he opened a portrait painting business in San Jose with Louis Lussier, continuing solo after Lussier's death in 1882. In 1889, he opened the Hill and Franklin Photography Studio and Art Gallery with J. C. Franklin. When Franklin left a year later, he partnered with his mother-in-law, Laura Broughton Watkins, as the Hill and Watkins Photographers Studio. For three years they were joined by Sidney Yard. In the earthquake of 1906, Hill's studio and the works there were destroyed, as was his painting The Murphy Party, which hung in the historical room of the California Pioneers Association in San Francisco and depicted the first settlers crossing Sunset Pass. He then turned to absentee management of a goldmine in Calaveras County, with little success, but continued to paint and photograph out of his home.

Hill married Florence Maria Watkins of Santa Clara in April 1883. They had three sons, the first of whom died in infancy. Hill died in 1922.

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