HILL, JAMES J

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 464 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HIG-HOR

HILL, JAMES J . (1838 ), American railway capitalist, was born near

Guelph

GUELPH

, Ontario, Canada, on the 16th of September 1838, and was educated at Rockwood (Ont.)

Academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

, a Quaker institution. In 1856 he settled in St Paul, Minnesota. Abandoning, because of his father's death, his plans to study medicine, he became a clerk in the office of a firm of river steamboat agents and shippers, and later the agent for a line of river packets; he established about 187o transportation lines on the Mississippi and on the Red River (of the North). He effected a traffic arrangement between the St Paul Pacific Railroad and his steamboat lines; and when the railway failed in 1873 for $27,000,000, Hill interested Sir Donald A. '

Smith

(Lord Strathcona), George Stephen (Lord

Mount

MOUNT, WILLIAM SIDNEY (1807-1868)

Stephen), and other Canadian capitalists, in the road and in the wheat country of the Red River Valley; he got

control

CONTROL (Fr. contrdle, older form contre rolle, from Med. Lat. contra-rotulus, a counter roll or copy of a document used to check the original; there is no instance in English of the use of " control " in this, its literal, meaning)

of the bonds (1878), foreclosed the mortgage, reorganized the road as the St Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, and began to extend the line, then only 380 M. long, toward the Pacific; and in 1883 he became its president. He was president of the

Great

GREAT

Northern Railway (comprehending all his secondary lines) from 1893 to April 1907, when he became chairman of its board of directors. In the extension (18831893) of this railway westward to Puget Sound (whence it has direct steamship connexions with China and Japan), the line was built by the company itself, none of the

work

WORK

being handled by contractors. Subsequently his

financial

FINANCIAL

interests in American railways caused constant sensations in the stock-markets. The Hill interests obtained

control

CONTROL (Fr. contrdle, older form contre rolle, from Med. Lat. contra-rotulus, a counter roll or copy of a document used to check the original; there is no instance in English of the use of " control " in this, its literal, meaning)

not only of the

Great

GREAT

-Northern system, but of the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and proposed the construction of another northern line to the Pacific coast. Hill was the president of the Northern Securities Company, which in 1904 was declared by the United States Supreme Court to be in conflict with the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. (See Vol. 27, p. 733.) Among Hill's gifts to public institutions was one of $500,000 to the St. Paul Theological Seminary (Roman Catholic).

End of Article: HILL, JAMES J

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/HIG_HOR/HILL_JAMES_J.html">
HILL, JAMES J
</a>

(Previous)
HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK NORMAN (1835-1903)

(Next)
HILL, JOHN (c. 1716-1775)

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email