William Lair Hill

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William Lair Hill
Judge of Grant County, Oregon
In office
1864–1866
Personal details
BornAugust 20, 1838
McMinnville College

William Lair Hill (August 20, 1838 – February 24, 1924), also referred to as W. Lair Hill, was an American

Lair Hill.[2]

Early life

William Hill was born on August 20, 1838, to Reuben Coleman and Margaret Graham (

née Lair) Hill in Tennessee.[3] His father was a doctor and Baptist preacher at their home along the Tennessee River in the southwestern portion of the state.[4] The home in McNairy County was near the site of the 1862 Battle of Shiloh.[5] In 1853, he moved to the Oregon Territory with his parents, with the family settling in Benton County in the Willamette Valley.[3]

In Oregon, Hill attended local schools and the

Linfield College) in McMinnville, a school that his father helped found.[3] While attending college from 1857 to 1859, he met the daughter of the school president, Julia Hall Chandler, whom he later married.[5] After college he began teaching in McMinnville before reading law at the law firm of George Henry Williams and A. C. Gibbs.[5] Hill was admitted to the bar in Oregon in December 1861.[3]

Career

After becoming a lawyer, he moved to Eastern Oregon where he served in the army during the American Civil War, working as a paymaster stationed in Oregon.[3][5] From 1864 to 1866, he served as the judge for Grant County.[3] On April 23, 1865, he married Julia Hall Chandler in Canyon City.[3][5] The couple had four children.[3] He worked as a newspaper editor for the Daily Union and the Daily Times.[3]

Hill in about 1890

Hill moved west to Portland in 1866 where he practiced law.[5] There he also became the editor of the city's main newspaper, The Oregonian, in October 1872.[3] He remained as editor until 1877 when Harvey Scott returned to the paper.[3] He was offered appointments to the Supreme Court of the Washington Territory in 1870 and later to the Supreme Court of Idaho Territory, but declined the positions.[5] Hill then moved to The Dalles after his time as editor in hopes of improving his health.[5] There he helped run the Wasco Academy.[4] In 1886, he codified Oregon's laws under authority of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, and then moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1889 where he codified that state's laws.[5] During his legal career he had partnerships with Richard Williams, Marion Francis Mulkey, George Hannibal Durham, H. Y. Thompson, and W. W. Thayer among others.[6]

Later years

Hill served as a director of the new Columbia River Railway & Navigation Company in 1892.[3] After a time in Seattle he moved south to Oakland, California, where he continued to practice law.[3] William Lair Hill died there at the age of 83 on February 24, 1924.[3]

Books authored

  • The codes and general laws of Oregon, Volume 1. Published by authority of statute of February 26, 1885. February 26, 1885.

References

  1. ^ "William Lair Hill is Dead in Oakland". The Guard. Eugene, Oregon. 25 Feb 1924.
  2. ^ "Lair Hill Park". Portland Parks and Recreation.
  3. ^
    Binfords & Mort Publishing
    . pp. 113-114.
  4. ^ a b Elwood Evans, ed. (1889). History of the Pacific Northwest: Oregon and Washington. North Pacific History Company of Portland, Or.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Johnson, Theodore (October 1891). "Two Members of the Seattle Bar". Magazine of Western History. 14 (6). Magazine of Western History Publishing Co.: 664–668.
  6. ^ Colmer, Montagu, and Charles Erskine Scott Wood. 1910. History of the Bench and Bar of Oregon. Portland, Or: Historical Pub. Co. pp. 126, 246, and 271.

External links

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