Hill, Clarissa E. 1822-1916

HILL, HEATH, EDSON, PRENTICE

Posted By: Linda Ziemann (email)
Date: 1/1/2006 at 20:34:39

Source: Akron Register newspaper
Dated 27 Jan 1916

A LIFE SKETCH OF AKRON'S OLDEST WOMAN RESIDENT-WAS WIDOW OF VETERAN OF
WAR OF 1812

[There is a nice photo included with this article of Mrs. Hill]

Mention was made in these columns last week of the death of Mrs.
Clarissa E. Hill, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Laura D. Hall, after
a brief illness of pneumonia, at the advance age of 93 years, 3 months
and 17 days.

"Grandma Hill" familiarly and affectionately so-called by her many Akron
friends, whose maiden name was Clarissa Heath, was born in Broome
county, near Binghamton, New York, October 2, 1822. Her father's name
was Asa Heath, originally from Connecticut. After receiving her school
education, she became a school teacher for a short time during early
womanhood. In 1840, at the age of 18, she married Calvin Edson, and one
child was born to them, the daughter who now survives-Mrs. Laura D.
Hall, of Akron, Iowa. Mr. Edson died within two years. After a number
of years, the widow was again united in marriage with Nathan Prentice,
and by this union there were four children; but none of them long
survived, two being killed by accident and two passing on from natural
causes. The husband also passed away within a dozen years or less from
the time of marriage. The widow came to Rochelle, Illinois, about the
year 1866. Here she met and married Thos. W. Hill, who was several
years her senior. Mr. Hill, who had served as a drummer boy in the War
of 1812, died in 1881. Grandma Hill was now for the third time a widow,
destined, as it would seem in the providence of God, to live out more
than half her life in widowhood. She then came west and took a
homestead at Wessington Springs, South Dakota, which she made her home
for six years. She moved to Akron about the year 1890, or twenty-six
years ago, and this has been her home ever since. Here, with remarkable
health and vigor and business capacity and acumen, she made her way,
being entirely independent in her activities up to within less than a
week of her death. At the age of 87, she traveled all alone back to New
York, Chicago and Rochelle, Ill., to visit relatives and friends, and
during all the late years of the more than four-score to which she
attained she personally looked after many of the repairs on her
residence properties, made and attended to her own gardens and flowers
each year, did her own house work and found much time to be useful and
helpful to others-in fact, she was at all times more active and healthy
than the average woman of half her years. She retained her faculties to
a most remarkable and unusual degree up to the closing days of her life.
She was always a keen observer of events and an extensive reader, being
able to read ordinary print without glasses. One of the valued
keepsakes of her daughter, Mrs. Laura D. Hall, is a postcard received
while she was on her visit in the east, which was inscribed with Grandma
Hill's beautiful penmanship and in quantity contained as much as two or
three sheets of note paper, so finely was it written. After the death
of Mr. Hill she was eligible to draw a widow's pension, and at the time
of her death held the distinction of being possibly the only person
drawing a pension for the War of 1812 in the United States. To know
Grandma Hill was to love her and to hold her friendship was a privilege
esteemed by all. She also lived with God, of whom she was a devout
worshipper, having been converted and baptized in early girlhood, and
she had been a member of the Baptist church for many years. Her
sprightly presence and her pleasant greeting will be greatly missed in
these walks of life, which have known her for so many years; but she has
gone to a rich reward.

Funeral services were conducted by Rev. F. E. Volck in the Akron Baptist
church last Thursday afternoon. Interment in Riverside cemetery.