Dr. Benjamin Lord Hill

Image courtesy History of the Eclectic Medical Institute

 

Dr. Benjamin Lord Hill was born in 1813 in Pennsylvania to Noah Hill and his wife, the former Sukie Butler. When Benjamin was a youngster, the family moved to Berlin Heights, Erie County, Ohio. Benjamin Lord Hill studied law, and for a  time he practiced law in Norwalk, Ohio. Later, he studied medicine and graduated from the Reformed Medical College at Worthington, Ohio. Dr. Hill was Professor of Anatomy at the Eclectic Medical Institute. In 1850, Dr. Hill published a book entitled The Eclectic Practice of Surgery. In 1851, Dr. Hill took part in the founding of the Western College of Homeopathy. Around the same time, he was associated with a large water cure establishment in Berlin Heights. 

Image courtesty Water Cure Journal

In 1863, Dr. Benjamin Lord Hill was appointed by President Lincoln to consul to Nicaragua. Later, he was connected with the lumber industry in Michigan. In the late 1860s and early 1860s, Dr. Hill represented Erie County in the state of Ohio Legislature. Dr. Hill died in 1871 in Marysville, California. He was survived by his wife, the former Joanna Greer, and five children.

A lengthy obituary for Dr. Benjamin Lord Hill appeared in the May 24, 1871 issue of the Sandusky Register. Books written by Dr. Hill are housed in the Cleveland Health Sciences Library.  The final resting place of Dr. Hill is in the family lot of the West End Cemetery at Berlin Heights, Ohio. You can read more about Dr. Benjamin Lord  Hill in the History of the Western Reserve  and the History of the Eclectic Medical Institute. 

Birthplaces of our Yeager and Piehl Ancestors

 

Andrew Yeager and Lena (Piehl) Yeager were my great grandparents. Andrew Yeager was born in Muenchhof, Germany, to Lawrence Yeager (Lorenz Jaeger) and his wife, the former Maria Schweighardt. His birth year was either 1874 or 1876. (Sources in vital records and census records vary.) The Yeager family settled in Sandusky, Erie County, Ohio.

Lena Piehl was born in Oak Harbor, Ottawa County, Ohio in 1881, to Gotthold Ferdinand Piehl and  his wife, the former Augusta Jaensch. Both Gotthold Ferdinand Piehl and Augusta Jaensch were born in Bnin, Posen, Germany which is now Bnin, Poznań, Poland. They eventually settled on a farm near Oak Harbor, Ohio.

A relative told me that Grandma Lena Yeager and her sisters used to take the interurban railway from Oak Harbor to Sandusky, where they worked as domestics for rich people of German descent in Sandusky. Somewhere along the way, Lena met Andrew Yeager, and they were married in 1903, and lived most of their adult lives in Erie County, Ohio.

Below is map courtesy Google Maps, which shows the route from Bnin, Posen, Germany, the birthplace of Gotthold Ferdinand Piehl and Augusta Jaensch, to Muenchhof, Germany, the birthplace of Grandpa Andrew Yeager.

All my great great grandparents, as well as their children, traveled many miles. Had they not traveled, then all the descendants of Andrew and Lena Yeager would not be here! It is interesting to determine where some of  my roots originated!

While the area where Grandma Lena Yeager's parents were born is now a part of Poland, I have only heard of that branch of the family as being German in culture. Maybe today I still  have cousins in Poland and Germany.