It was immediately challenged in court by Governor Samuel Van Sant. But it collected a lot of royalties, more than $500 million over its long lifetime. Upon completion of the Summit Avenue residence, Hill had the family's old house, which he had constructed in 1878, razed. He had nine years of formal schooling. "What we want," Hill is quoted as saying, "is the best possible line, shortest distance, lowest grades, and least curvature we can build. Rachel Hill married physician Egil Boeckmann in 1913 at the Hill House at 240 Summit. The main room of the James J. Hill Center in downtown St. Paul on Tuesday, June 11, 2019. One of his challenges at this point was the avoidance of federal action against railroads. In 1959, Hill High in St. Paul, Minnesota, was established as a school from the funds set aside from Hill's wife for education. In 1891, after three years of building, construction was completed on a new Hill family home on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. After Louis Jr.s death, the 20-year clock began ticking for the Great Northern Iron Ore Properties trust, even as its stock continued to trade under the GNI symbol. Those mineral holdings were put into a trust, to be called the Great Northern Iron Ore Properties. By all accounts, Hill was a hands-on, detail-obsessed manager. Its a tale of high finance and amazing fortune, befitting St. Pauls larger-than-life railroad baron. "What we want," Hill is quoted as saying, "is the best possible line, shortest distance, lowest grades, and least curvature we can build. Renamed the Great Northern Railway in 1890, it remained the "great adventure" of Hills life. Louis Jr. was just 4 years old when the trust was created. Brunfelt gave one example: The Hull-Rust-Mahoning (mine) complex provided 25 percent of the ore during World War II that the nation consumed and Hill owned a big part of it.. Quietly, Harriman began buying stock in Northern Pacific with the intention of gaining control of Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy. Between 1883 and 1889, Hill built his railroads across Minnesota, into Wisconsin, and across North Dakota to Montana. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA. In 1880, its net worth was $728,000; in 1885 it was $25,000,000. One of his challenges at this point was the avoidance of federal action against railroads. He offered Japanese Industrialists Southern cotton and would even ship it for free if they would compare it with the short staple cotton they were using with the promise of a refund if they were dissatisfied, which they were not. Hence, Hill left school in 1852, and began working at a grocery store to aid in supporting his family. The introduced crop weed in Western US wheat-growing areas Sisymbrium altissimum also has a common name "Jim Hill Mustard", after the belief by farmers that it was spread from contaminated seed leaking out of railway stock along the railroads he controlled. The man nicknamed the Empire Builder, and his descendents, get credit for a defining role in developing and shaping Minnesotas Iron Range and the Northwest. Meanwhile, nearly every other transcontinental railroad went bankrupt. In 1856 at seventeen, James Hill found work as a clerk in Minnesota, for a firm of shipping agents who traded and worked with steamboats. It was obtained by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1978 and today is operated as a museum and gallery. The iron empire: James J. Hills Great Northern, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Submit to Stumbleupon (Opens in new window), The iron empire: James J. 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Then Harriman quickly began buying stock in Northern Pacific with the aim of eventually gaining control over it. For a brief period of time, he hired Italian and Greek laborers, but company officials were not satisfied with their performance. The 14-story building cost $14 million to construct. Hill saved money by repeatedly cutting wages, made possible by a time of deflation when prices were falling generally. A childhood accident with a bow and arrow blinded him in the right eye. Hill pursued a broad range of other business interests: coal and iron ore mining, Great Lakes and Pacific Ocean shipping, banking and finance, agriculture, and milling. Theres really no other trust like it., Yet there was another reason, at a time of rising public resentment toward wealthy industrialists and grim conditions at the mines. Sep 16 1838 - Eramosa Township, Upper Canada, British North America, May 29 1916 - Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, United States, James Jerome Hill, Ann Hill (born Dunbar), Sep 16 1838? https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/james-j-hill-138.php. Conoco-Phillips wanted to get the property immediately on April 7, 2015, but the trustees argued that winding up the trusts affairs would take until 2016. The net worth of the company jumped from $728,000 in 1880 to $25,000,000 in 1885. [28] As of September 2016, the fund is not yet closed. This last attempt lasted from 1955 until final Supreme Court approval and merger in March 1970, which created the Burlington Northern Railroad. [3] By 1879 he had a local monopoly by merging with Norman Kittson. After working as a clerk in Kentucky (during which he learned bookkeeping), Hill decided to permanently move to the United States and settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the age of 18. In St. Paul, the city's main library building and the adjoining Hill Business Library were funded by him. Northern Pacific stock was forced up to $1,000 per share. She received education at St. Marys Institute of Notre Dame. Samuel Hill was an executive at the Great Northern Railway when he married Mary Hill. In 1867, Hill entered the coal business, and by 1879 it had expanded five times over, giving Hill a local monopoly in the anthracite coal business. During this same period, Hill also entered into banking and quickly managed to become member of several major banks' boards of directors. J. Hill was young, he moved to Kyiv, Ukraine when Hill born. James Jerome Hill Mary Theresa Mehegan Hill Mary Frances (Mamie) James Norman (Jimmy) Louis Warren Clara Ann Over 400 workers labored on the project. Hill sent Mary to finishing school in Milwaukee before their marriage in 1867 to prepare her for the impending change of stature in her life. Richter thinks that James Hill's story is an important one not only because of his success, but also because of the odds his success was won against. Because of his previous experiences in shipping and fuel supply, Hill was able to enter both the coal and steamboat businesses. Eramosa Township, Upper Canada, British North America, Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_J._Hill&oldid=707800972, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hill_james_jerome_14E.html, Persons of National Historic Significance. Hill Capital is a venture capital fund established in 2016 "aligned with James J. Hill's belief in the cooperation of the production, distribution and exchange of wealth as outlined in his writings". Copyright Privacy Information Policy Ticketing Policy. We do not care enough for Rocky Mountains scenery to spend a large sum of money developing it. Drawing on his experience in the development of Minnesota's Iron Range, Hill was, during 19111912, in close contact with Gaspard Farrer of Baring Brothers & Company of London regarding the formation of the Brazilian Iron Ore Company to tap that nation's rich mineral deposits. Hill also wanted control of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad because of its Midwestern lines and access to Chicago. By 1889, Hill decided that his future lay in expanding into a transcontinental railroad. Paul and Pacific Railroad to the Great Northern Railway Company. Half brother of James Jerome Hill. The Great Northern bought its lands from the federal governmentit received no land grantsand resold them to farmers at cheap prices. Concomitantly, the resulting trade in munitions with England and France carried the United States from a depression in 1914 to boom years in 1915 and 1916.[22]. The following year James J. Hill built a rail along the Marian Pass without constructing a tunnel and altered the name of the company from St. He may have considered himself fortunate to receive good education, but destiny spat misfortune his way, when his father passed away. Hill's top aides were careless about details, bookkeeping, correspondence, and reports.[17]. WIKITREE PROTECTS MOST SENSITIVE INFORMATION BUT ONLY TO THE EXTENT STATED IN THE TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY POLICY. This incident however did not cause much hindrance in his future career. The most famous home of the first construction boom was the James J. Hill House, built in 1891 in Richardsonian Romanesque style on the site of the original Edward Duffield Neill home.Owned by James. In 1891, after three years of building, construction was completed on Hill's new family home at 240 Summit Avenue in St. Paul. In 1907 he made his son the owner of his business, yet his grit and determination led him to work daily, until just a week before he died. University leaders admit to misstep in Islamophobia controversy as adjunct professor files lawsuit, Winter storm warning issued for metro Denver, northeast plains ahead of significant storm, The Embrace Martin Luther King Jr. Boston memorial causes a stir, Duluth Boy Scout has slept outside for 1,000 days and counting, NYPD captain forced out after collecting about $60K for hours he never worked, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. But he isnt front and center.. The key to the Great Northern line was Hill's use of the previously unmapped Marias Pass first discovered by Santiago Jameson. June 13, 2019 3:59 PM. His first job in St. Paul was with a steamboat company, where he worked as a bookkeeper. This ended Hill's ability to maintain competitive rates in Asian countries and in the subsequent two years American trade with Japan and China dropped 40% (or $41 million). Schonberger, Howard. "A Gilded Age Businessman in Politics: James J. Hill, the Northwest, and the American Presidency, 1884-1912,", This page was last edited on 15 December 2022, at 06:08. To sea as a clerk for a few years CA 1918-1922 1826 in Broadoak, Cornwall, ;. During the late 1880s,he aimed to build a rail route through the Rockies to the Pacific. Hill and Debs agreed to arbitration by other business owners led by Charles Alfred Pillsbury. And he built the iron ore docks, which made it possible to ship ore to distant cities like Cleveland; Gary, Ind. [16], Leonard says that after 1900 Hill exhibited poor business judgment regarding one Canadian subsidiary, the Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway Company (VW&Y). He bought out plenty of bankrupt businesses during this time, reformed them and sold them off at great profit. A dispute over one of the last-remaining parcels of undeveloped land in a private St. Paul suburb established by the heirs of railroad magnate James J. Hill has the local community scrambling for answers just a week before the election. Cook St. Paul is no more. After amassing a personal fortune estimated at $63 million and over $200 million in related assets, James J. Hill died in his Summit Avenue home on May 29, 1916, one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures of America's Gilded Age. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions. In order to generate business for his railroad, Hill encouraged European immigrants to settle along his line, often paying for Russian and Scandinavian settlers to travel from Europe. He came to St. Paul in 1856, where he first worked as a shipping clerk for J. W. Bass and Company. Hill teamed up with Norman Kittson (the man he had merged steamboat businesses with), Donald Smith,[5] George Stephen and John Stewart Kennedy. 240 Summit Ave. The 14-story building cost $14 million to construct. Born In: Eramosa Township, Ontario, Upper Canada, Spouse/Ex-: Mary Theresa Mehegan (m. 1867), children: Charlotte Hill Slade, Clara Hill Lindley, Gertrude Hill Gavin, James N. Hill, Katherine, Louis W. Hill, Mary Hill Hill, Rachel Hill Boeckmann, Ruth Hill Beard, Walter Jerome Hill, See the events in life of James J. Hill in Chronological Order, (Canadian-American railroad executive, Businessman). When there was not enough industry in the areas Hill was building, Hill brought the industry in, often by buying out a company and placing plants along his railroad lines. It is also true that he used to survey the areas where rails were to be laid himself on horseback. He was within 40,000 shares of control when Hill learned of Harriman's activities and quickly contacted J. P. Morgan, who ordered his men to buy everything they could get their hands on. He gradually began working for himself. Mary Hill was long active in St. Paul's Catholic community. And once they did, it led to soul-searching about how to handle it. Contents 1 Life 1.1 Family Roots 1.2 Marriage 1.3 Death 2 Work A portrait of James J. Hill is now hung in the library in his home. hillhouse@mnhs.org In rare moments away from work, Hill devoted himself to amassing an impressive collection of French landscape painting showcased in the two-story art gallery of his Summit Avenue mansion. Unlike the railroad, the trust rarely drew much attention. In February 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt began prosecution of the Northern Securities Company under the Sherman Antitrust Act. The result was chaos on Wall Street. Hill was born in Eramosa Township, Wellington County, Upper Canada (now Ontario). He also bought out bankrupt businesses, built them up again, and then resold themoften gaining a substantial profit. The Hills shrewdly included a group of children among the founders, insuring the trust would last a very long time. When there was not enough industry in the areas Hill was building, Hill brought the industry in, often by buying out a company and placing plants along his railroad lines. It is currently situated in front of More Hall, which is adjacent to the former on campus nuclear reactor building. By 1860, he was working for wholesale grocers, for whom he handled freight transfers, especially dealing with railroads and steamboats. The center, which opened in 1921 . His particular talents for English and mathematics would be critical later in his life. Over 400 workers labored on the project. Leave a message for others who see this profile. Residential Links: www.montereycountyweekly.com, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org By: jdubble07 Advertisement Around the World Mailing List Advertisement James J. Hill, in full James Jerome Hill, (born September 16, 1838, near Guelph, Ontario, Canadadied May 29, 1916, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.), American financier and railroad builder who helped expand rail networks in the northwestern United States. Many speculators, who had sold Northern Pacific "short" in the anticipation of a drop in the railroad's price, faced ruin. James is 18 degrees from Margaret Atwood, 19 degrees from Jim Carrey, 20 degrees from Elsie Knott, 21 degrees from Gordon Lightfoot, 23 degrees from Alton Parker, 19 degrees from Beatrice Tillman, 17 degrees from Jenny Trout, 20 degrees from Justin Trudeau, 23 degrees from Edwin Boyd, 18 degrees from Barbara Hanley, 27 degrees from Fanny Rosenfeld and 20 degrees from Cathryn Hondros on our single family tree. He also took strong measures to economizein just one year, Hill cut the railway's expense of carrying a ton of freight by 13%. Roosevelt sent his Justice Department to sue the Northern Securities Company in 1902. The school, which was all-male, consolidated in 1971 with the all-female Archbishop Murray School to form Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, Minnesota. Louis Warren Hill (May 19, 1872- April 27, 1948), was an American railroad executive. The Hill family has shared some of that wealth with St. Paul and the region, through foundations that continue to this day. With his astute judgments and haggling skills, he managed to recover it from bankruptcy and even expanded the rails. Paul. discoveries. He was eyed as a great competitor by the successful and dominant E.H Harriman, who owned Union Pacific Railway. He was the first major donor to the Marquette University School of Medicine. The result was chaos on Wall Street. Hill's leadership became a case study in the successful management of a capital-intensive business during the economic downturn. Under his management, StPM&M prospered. "Minnesota Deaths and Burials, 1835-1990," index and database. The move was politically unpopular and in clear violation of Minnesota statutes. James Hill was only fourteen years old when this demise occurred. Hill chose to build his railroad north of the competing Northern Pacific line, which had reached the Pacific Northwest over much more difficult terrain with more bridges, steeper grades, and tunneling. "Minnesota, Death Records, 1866-1916," index and database. From 1886 to 1905, American exports to Japan leapt from $7.7 million a year (equal to $232,226,296 today) to $51.7 million, equal to $1,559,233,704 today. By the time of his death in 1916, James J. Hill was worth more than $53 million[ (almost $2.5 billion (2007) dollars). 2008 - 2022 INTERESTING.COM, INC. It is just amazing that one mine complex produced as much ore as it has., The mines have been lucrative for a very long time. s W. Hill, James Norman Hill, Unknown Hill, Clara Ann Lindley (born Hill), Katherine Theresa Hill, Unknown Hill, Ruth Beard (born Hill), Sep 16 1838 - Wellington, Guelph, Rockwood, Eramosa Township, Ontario, Canada, Mary Elizabeth Brooks (born Hill), Alexander Samuel Dunbar Hill. To promote settlement and revenue for his rail business, Hill experimented with agriculture and worked to hybridize Russian wheat for Dakota soil and weather conditions. Hillsboro, North Dakota; Hill County, Montana; and Hillyard, Washington[23] (now a neighborhood of Spokane), are named for him. In honour of his legacy, his heirs founded the James J. Hill Reference Library, which provides practical business information to businesses in the entire nation. He was named a founder of the Trust at age 4. It was at this point that Hill became the official president of StPM&M (not that he hadn't been the man behind the curtain before), and decided to expand the rail lines. He was a voracious reader of nonfiction, although there are references to Hill lustily singing ballads based on the poems of Robert Burns. He also ran model experimental farms in Minnesota, such as North Oaks, to develop superior livestock and crop yields for the settlers locating near his railroads. Old St. Paul knows who he was, McCormack said of James J. Hill. Over the next two decades, he worked relentlessly to push the line north to Canada and then west across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Although Great Northern and Northern Pacific were backed by J. P. Morgan and James J. Hill, the Union Pacific was backed not only by its president, Edward H. Harriman, but by the extremely powerful William Rockefeller and Jacob Schiff. But getting the freight revenue required a massive investment in track, machinery, land and manpower. He observed and learnt and came up with shrewd ideas. [18] Hill also wanted control of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad because of its Midwestern lines and access to Chicago. His father was a hired farmer, who received employment occasionally at Ontario in Canada. Hill was born September 16, 1838, in Eramosa Township, Upper Canada (now Ontario) to James Hill Jr. and Ann Dunbar. [8][9][10], Six months after the railroad reached Seattle came the deep nationwide depression called the Panic of 1893. This business brought good profit in five folds by 1879, consolidating his monopoly in the anthracite coal industry. Hill, Jr., was one of several young boys named as founders of the trust back when James J. Hill was alive, to keep the trust going for many years. Together they not only bought the railroad, they also vastly expanded it by bargaining for trackage rights with the Northern Pacific Railway. His two sons had to talk him into being interested in it in the first place, said Eileen R. McCormack, a Hill family biographer and former curator of the Hill papers. James J. Hill is back in the news this month but not for his famous railroad. Having done community building through foundation work and governmental work, he found another way to build a community by creating the unique North . Revealing for the first time a story hidden from public view for a century, award-winning historian James A. Stolpestad and the Ramsey County Historical Society present the history of the Great Northern Iron Ore Properties mining trust formed in 1906 by James J. Hill and Louis W. Hill to acquire, manage, and lease 67,000 acres on Minnesota's 100-mile long Mesabi Range. Instead, it's for his lesser-known role as an iron ore magnate. James Jerome Hill (1838 - 1916) James Jerome Hill Born 16 Sep 1838 in Eramosa Township, Upper Canada, British North America Son of James Hill Sr. and Ann (Dunbar) Hill [sibling (s) unknown] Husband of Mary Theresa (Mehegan) Hill married 19 Aug 1867 in Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, United States Descendants At the start, it took the Hill family a few years to fully explore and understand what they owned. http://www.railroads-of-montana.com/Marias_Pass.htm, https://chereek.wordpress.com/tag/class-warfare/, http://sites.mnhs.org/historic-sites/james-j-hill-house/james-j-hill-gilded-age-entrepreneur. Neither side could win a distinct advantage, and the parties soon realized that a truce would have to be called. In order to generate business for his railroad, Hill encouraged European immigrants to settle along his line, often paying for Russian and Scandinavian settlers to travel from Europe. Categories: Eramosa Township, Upper Canada | Great Northern Railway | Persons of National Historic Significance | Namesakes US Counties | Notables, WIKITREE HOME | ABOUT | G2G FORUM | HELP | SEARCH. If the federal government believed that the railroads were making too much profit, they might see this as an opportunity to force lowering of the railway tariff rates. Six months after the railroad reached Seattle came the depression called the Panic of 1893. Political contributions favored policies over party, and Hill was frequently frustrated when candidates failed to fulfill campaign promises. He began his career in transportation in 1856 as a 17-year-old clerk on the St. Paul levee. (Ironically, the Burlington Route, Northern Pacific, and Great Northern would later merge in 1970 to form the Burlington Northern Railroad.) Hill did much of the route planning himself, traveling over proposed routes on horseback. Thus, with his experience in cargo business he began bidding for other contracts and won quite a few. In 1864 Hill met a waitress who was working at the Merchants Hotel in St. Paul, where he often ate. The $400-million merger consolidated all major rail lines in the northwest quarter of the nation. By 1889, Hill decided that his future lay in expanding into a transcontinental railroad. So the trust came with an expiration date: it would terminate 20 years after the last original founder had died. Yet, he was adamant to build the straightest route, with the shortest distance across the Northwest. He realised the colossal development and opportunities it would bring to the northwest region. Still, historians agree that the Hills role on the Iron Range was definitely not a matter of just cashing royalty checks.
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