Henry Hill Henry Hill is a son of Caleb Hill, who was identified with many of the principal improvements in North Chatham, being a man of great personal energy and activity. He removed from the town of Dover, Dutchess Co., N. Y., and settled at North Chatham before there was any village at that point known by its present name. He built a tannery and followed tanning, currying, and shoemaking, adding also to this occupation that of a farmer, having purchased seventy acres of land where the village now stands. He procured the establishment of a post-office as early as 1816, and later erected a hotel, which is still one of the old landmarks of the place. After his removal from Dutchess county, Mr. Hill married Eunice Moore, of Chatham, by whom he had four children who arrived at years of maturity and who are still living, of whom Henry Hill, the subject of this notice is the eldest.

    Henry was brought up to work on the farm and in the tannery, and was a handy and industrious boy, improving his time and making the best use of his opportunities for schooling. At the age of eighteen he became identified with the affairs of the hotel, which he continued to manage about thirty years after his father's death. After this event, which occurred December 17, 1832, the management of the estate and care of the family devolved upon Henry, who, by his characteristic energy and successful business qualifications, greatly improved and increased the value of the property left to him and the rest of the heirs. His father had been postmaster from the time of the establishment of the office till his death; after which Henry was his successor for about fifteen years.

     Henry Hill married for his first wife, Parmelia Hunt, daughter of Daniel Hunt, of Windham Centre, Greene Co., N.Y., May 22, 1850, and by this marriage had two children, both deceased. Mrs. Hill died April 16, 1854. On the 31st of August, 1868, he married his second and present wife in New York city, Mrs. Elizabeth Van Salisbury, whose portrait appears by the side of her husbandry in the above engravings.