Background
Hill was born on January 29, 1872 in Pompton, New Jersey, United States. He was one of at least three children of Benjamin Rowland Hill, a wheelwright, and Hetty Maria (Van Duyne) Hill. Both parents were of English colonial stock.
Hill was born on January 29, 1872 in Pompton, New Jersey, United States. He was one of at least three children of Benjamin Rowland Hill, a wheelwright, and Hetty Maria (Van Duyne) Hill. Both parents were of English colonial stock.
Hill was educated at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and at Cornell University, where he graduated in 1893 with the degrees of mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. He then joined the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, entering the general shop and engineering training course, which involved the mechanical and electrical inspection of machinery manufactured by the company.
In 1895 Hill became a special assistant to George Westinghouse and was placed in charge of the installation and initial operation of all of Westinghouse's heavy railway and multiple-unit train equipment. Hill went to London in 1901 as engineer-in-chief of the British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company; in that position he directed all of the company's engineering work, with particular attention to railway electrification. In London he came in close contact with George Gibbs, with whom he formed a lifelong personal and professional association.
Hill returned to the United States in 1906 and for the next five years served as Gibbs's chief assistant in the construction and electrification of Pennsylvania Station in New York City and its related complex of tracks and tunnels. In 1911 the two engineers formed a partnership, which in 1923 was incorporated as Gibbs & Hill. The firm's primary work during its first quarter century was the electrification of steam railways. Gibbs & Hill were in charge of the electrification of sixty-three miles of the Norfolk and Western Railway (1915) and of 134 miles of the Virginian Railway (1925), both coal-carrying roads with difficult grades. In each case electrification permitted higher speeds and more flexible and efficient operations; it also permitted the Virginian to postpone expensive double-tracking of a portion of its line. Gibbs & Hill helped modify the electrical equipment of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and electrified the Chicago suburban trackage of the Illinois Central.
The largest and most complex electrification job was that of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The process began in New York in 1910 with tracks between Manhattan Transfer and the Sunnyside, L. I. , coach yards. It continued in 1915 with the Broad Street Station and suburban service in Philadelphia. And it was completed between 1928 and 1938 with main-line service between New York, Washington, and Harrisburg. The railroad invested some $150 million to electrify 2, 200 miles of track along 670 miles of its route. In later years, particularly after Gibbs's death in 1940, the firm broadened its activities and undertook a variety of consulting, design, and construction assignments for industries, public utilities, rapid transit systems, and government bodies both in the United States and abroad. Hill managed virtually all Gibbs & Hill activities until shortly before his death; Gibbs, the senior partner, served mainly as a contact with clients and directed engineering on special problems.
He died of heart disease at the Orange Memorial Hospital and was buried in Union Dale Cemetery, Pittsburgh.
Hill was an active Presbyterian layman.
He was a prohibitionist.
A demanding administrator, Hill was noted for his "unswerving adherence to the ethics of the profession" and for an "unusual aptitude for discarding quickly any outmoded design or engineering concept, in favor of more advanced, but proven, techniques. " He was an "old school" administrator, enforcing discipline and demanding "a full day's work for a full day's pay". Unlike his senior partner, George Gibbs, who had been described as "a man of the world, " Hill was inclined to be introspective and reserved.
Hill married Grace Gibson Crider of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1904. They had one child, Jean Swan, who married Ernest Clayton Johnson, Hill's successor as president of Gibbs & Hill.