Benjamin H. Hill

“ And Benjamin tries to shove me into a barbed wire paddock and make me grow potatoes or Chicagoes.
And how can I be free, without gods that come and go? But Benjamin won't let anything exist except my useful fellow men, and I'm sick of them; as for his Godhead, his Providence, He is Head of nothing except a vast heavenly store that keeps every imaginable line of goods, from victrolas to cat-o'-nine tails.
And how can any man be free without a soul of his own, that he believes in and won't sell at any price? But Benjamin doesn't let me have a soul of my own. ”

“ Century, Authors (N.Y. City) ; Metropolitan, Cosmos (Washington) ; Genesee Valley (Rochester) .
Hill, Ernest Newton, manufacturer, capitalist; born Miamisburg, Ohio, Sept. 5, 1862; son of Jasper N. and Rebecca Hill; educated in Anderson High School; married, Anderson, Ind., March 16, 1887, Bertha M. Whitinger; children : Kenneth B., Sara G. Vice-president The Hill Tripp Pump Co.; general manager the Hill Machine Co. Largely interested in home city affairs. President of the Hill-Stage Co.; also member of Executive Board Chamber of Commerce of the City of Anderson. Residence : 608 Jackson St. ”

“ Benjamin is also a lawyer, having been admitted to the bar in Memphis, Tenn., in January, 1880. His experience as a practitioner has been varied, and the territory over which his legal services have been extended aggregate twelve different states.
In California he is very highly esteemed by both whites and blacks. The California Conference of the A. M. E. church, has elected him Presiding Elder, his jurisdiction comprising the states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. He is also General Financial Agent and Superintendent of the Connection's Sabbath-school on the Coast. ”

“ Only know that 'venery' is of the great gods. An offering-up of yourself to the very great gods, the dark ones, and nothing else.
13. HUMILITY
See all men and women according to the Holy Ghost that is within them. Never yield before the barren.
There's my list. I have been trying dimly to realize it for a long time, and only America and old Benjamin have at last goaded me into trying to formulate it.
And now I, at least, know why I can't stand Benjamin. He tries to take away my wholeness and my dark forest, my freedom. For how can any man be free, without an illimitable background? ”

“ It proved to be from his brother-in-law, Robert Homes, "master of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware." He came to Newcastle, it seems, about forty miles from Philadelphia, and, hearing of Benjamin's place of residence, he sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him of the deep sorrow into which his departure had plunged his parents, who still were wholly ignorant of his fate, and exhorting him to return home to his friends, who would welcome him kindly. The letter was a strong appeal to his feelings. ”

“ A few years afterward he removed to Newark, N. J., where he was the schoolmaster in 1718. His stepson, John Munn, married Mary, sister of John Richards and widow of John Ward, about 1720, and had Joseph, Samuel and Benjamin. Benjamin was born 1730 and died 1818—lived all his life on his farm, now the town of East Orange. Two of his sons, David and Amos, served in the Revolutionary War. ”

“ Then he sat himself on Benjamin's legs, which thus ceased to be turbulent, and, taking off the garters, therewith tied the ankles together.
Sighing satisfaction, Harry picked up the pistol and sword, spoils of victory, and rose at his leisure. He contemplated the hapless highwayman with benign interest for a moment, and turned to the coach. "You are still there, ladies? Benjamin is flattered and so am I. But the play is over. He will not be amusing for some time, and at any moment he may be profane. ”

“ Possibly they would have believed that their method of lighting would be popular in "that great city, the Holy Jerusalem," had it not been declared in the Bible that they will "need no candle," because "there shall be no night there."
"Uncle Benjamin" added, what really comforted Josiah: "Of course, if you are not able to send Benjamin to college, he can't go, and that ends it. If I were able to pay the bills, I should be only too glad to do it. Benjamin is a remarkable boy, and his talents will manifest themselves whatever his pursuit may be. He will not always make candles for a living ”

“ Philip, my grandmother's only remaining son, inherited his mother's intelligence. His mistress sometimes trusted him to go with a cargo to New York. One of these occasions occurred not long after Benjamin's second escape. Through God's good providence the brothers met in the streets of New York. It was a happy meeting, though Benjamin was very pale and thin; for on his way from bondage he had been taken violently ill, and brought nigh unto death. Eagerly he embraced his brother, exclaiming: "O Phil! here I am at last. I came nigh dying when I was almost in sight of freedom ”

“ It was truly wonderful that a boy of sixteen should shoulder the responsibility of such an enterprise, in such circumstances, and carry it with so much courage and ease.
"I can look after it; there's no trouble in that," said Benjamin to the "liberal club," who assembled as soon as possible after James was incarcerated. "The action of the Court will increase our subscribers; and I propose to make the paper more spicy than ever."
"Glad to hear that," responded one of the club. "Let us defy such intolerance, though all the magistrates and ministers in Boston support it ”

“ The question of raising him to the bench was seriously considered by Lord Cairns, who, however, seems to have thought that the ungrudging hospitality and goodwill with which Benjamin had been received by the English legal profession had gone far enough. Towards the close of his career he was in ill health, and he suffered from the results of a fall from a tramcar. He retired in 1882 to a house in Paris which he had built and where he had been in the habit of passing his vacations with his wife, who was a Frenchwoman. ”

“ He is the greatest lawyer in Pennsylvania. Keep the letter and give it to him."
We may say here, once for all, that Benjamin did keep the letter until the arrival of Mr. Hamilton, several months later, when he presented it to him, for which favor Hamilton was very grateful, and became Benjamin's life-long friend.
"But what can I do, Mr. Denham?" asked Benjamin. "I am here a stranger in a strange city, with very little money. What would you advise me to do?" ”

“ And this event of his boyhood he as an old man remembered, saying, that it had ever since been a pleasure to him to see good workmen handle their tools, and adding that it was useful to him in his business and science to have learned so much in the way of handicraft. At length Benjamin's love of books determined his occupation, and like many another famous author he was set to the printing-press. In 1717 his brother James had come back from England with a press and letters, and at the age of twelve Benjamin was bound to his brother as an apprentice. ”

“ He had the determined support of a minority in the convention which placed Grover Cleveland in nomination for the Presidency in 1892, and has often been named since in connection with that high office.
Senator Hill has reached success by study, hard work, integrity, and the momentum of natural ability. He is not a brilliant speaker, and rarely are his addresses lit up by flashes of humor; but they are solid, full of fact, and logical. He is extremely popular with his own party, which would be proud to honor him with any office within its gift. ”

“ Benjamin was a human kind of boy, eager to run away to sea; went to the kind of school kept by a school-master only two years of his life; educated himself on a mixed diet of John Bunyan, “Plutarch’s Lives” and the “Spectator”; became a kind of printer’s devil to his brother James; and early got into trouble through incautious writing for the newspapers. At seventeen the graceless youth ran away from home. Yet he came back four times to visit Boston, and toward the end of his life wrote, “I long much to see again my native place and to lay my bones there—my best wishes attend my dear country.” ”

“ James never gave him a chance for anything but work; it seemed as if he could not pile enough on him. When he found Ben could write poetry pretty well, he made him write ballads and sell them on the streets, putting the money they brought into his own pocket. He was very mean to the younger brother, and when he began to strike Ben whenever he got into a rage, the boy left him.
Benjamin went to New York but found no work there. He worked his way to Philadelphia. ”

“ It had the effect also to turn his attention to prose writing, which is more substantial and remunerative than poetry, and in this he became distinguished, as we shall see hereafter.
The practice of writing down one's thoughts, called in our schools "composition," is excellent, and ought not to be so generally neglected by the young as it is. It proved a valuable exercise to Benjamin, even before he became renowned in the service of his country. In several instances, while he was yet a youth, it enabled him to secure business, when otherwise he might have been in extreme want. ”

“ However villainous their statesmanship, and to whatever traitorous purposes they lent the power of their eloquence, there were several from the disaffected States who were eminent in a skillful and brilliant use of speech. Probably the man who possessed the most art in eloquence, and who united a keen and plausible sophistry with great brilliancy of language and declamation with the highest skill, was Benjamin, of Louisiana. Born a Hebrew, and bearing in his countenance the unmistakable indications of Jewish birth, his person is small, thick, and ill-proportioned ”

“ Benjamin Harrison is a good, honest, patriotic man, and we like him. But he never stole second base in all his life and he could not swat Mickey Welch's down curves over the left-field fence. Therefore we say again, as we have said many times before, that much as we revere Benjamin Harrison's purity and amiability, we cannot but accord the tribute of our sincerest admiration, to that paragon of American manhood, Michael J. Kelly. ”

“ Benjamin found pleasant literary associates in Philadelphia. A gifted young man usually attracts to himself bright young men near his age. Such was the case with Benjamin. Three young men especially became his boon companions, all of them great readers. Their literary tendencies attracted Benjamin, though their characters were not deficient in high aims and integrity. Their names were Charles Osborne, Joseph Matson, and James Ralph. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk. ”

“ One would think he need not have wondered long, when there were so many people suffering from the want of what he abounded in; but Mr Benjamin, honest man, had his crotchets like other folks. In the first place, he had less sympathy with poverty than might have been expected, considering how poor he had once been himself ”

“ I am thinking you will continue to be hurried for a while, unless you have another hand besides me."
"You can do what I shall set you about just as well as a boy, or even a man, who had worked at the business for a year."
"I wonder what that can be, that is so easy!" added Benjamin, with some surprise.
"You can cut the wicks, fill the moulds for cast-candles, keep the shop in order, run hither and thither upon errands, and do other things that will save my time, and thus assist me just as much as a man could in doing the same things." ”

“ But it is one thing to be permitted to drink and sing with a great man at night, and another thing to procure of him the pardon of rebels (and those not the common sort, but leaders and captains) . That Benjamin would attempt to save us, I did not doubt; because in common decency and humanity he must needs try to save his grandfather and his cousins. But that he would effect anything—that, indeed, I doubted. Whether he did make an attempt, I know not. He came not to the prison, nor did he make any sign that he knew we were among the prisoners. ”

“ When they were out upon the street together, Sir Benjamin turned to him and said:
"Now that we are on neutral ground, I want to say that you Americans are a stiff-necked lot of people. You are not like any other breed of men. ”

“ Thoroughness in learning the printer's art, as well as in studying the use of language and composition, characterized him in Boston, as we have seen. Now he was reaping the benefits of it. He handled the composing-stick so dexterously, and answered every question so intelligently and promptly, that Keimer saw at once he was really an expert. Many boys are satisfied if they can only "pass muster." Their ambition rises no higher than that. But not so with Benjamin. He sought to understand the business to which he attended, and to do as well as possible the work he undertook. ”

“ A sight of him passing up Market Street, with a loaf of bread under each arm, while devouring the third one in his hand, in apparel that was less comely than that of many modern tramps, is proof that pride had no dominion over him. Many boys of seventeen, in such poverty and apparel, would have avoided a public street, and even a Quaker meetinghouse. But these were small matters to Benjamin. He was thinking of greater things—employment and a livelihood. He had a destiny to work out, and in working that he must do as he could, and not as he would. ”