Thomas W. Hill

Thomas Warden Hill (January 9, 1817 - May 26, 1879) was an American farmer from Springfield, Wisconsin who held a number of offices in local government, and who served two one-year terms as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Walworth County, one as a Freesoiler and one ten years later as a Republican.

Hill was born in Swanton, Vermont on January 9, 1817, and moved with his parents when five years of age to Lewis, New York in Essex County, New York. His parents died when he was still a child, and he was raised by an uncle, with whom he lived until he was 21 years of age, receiving only a limited education. In the fall of 1838, he struck out for the frontier, traveling mostly on foot. He eventually arrived in the Town of Geneva in the Wisconsin Territory on October 15 of that year, and immediately found work on local farms, in a store and in a gristmill. By March 1839, he was able to buy land in the nearby Town of Hudson, which plot he would retain for the rest of his life. He was soon elected to his first local offices, with the 1840 elections of the Town of Geneva, when he was elected as tax collector and constable.

In the spring of 1842, having been moved by a series of revival meetings during the previous winter, he joined the Presbyterian Church in Geneva. On February 12, 1843, he married Lydia Ferris. On their first anniversary, they moved to his land in Hudson, where they would live for most of the next three decades. They continued to improve the original land and expanded their holdings over the years, and Hill pursued private studies to supplement his limited formal education.

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