Source: CLARK COUNTY PRESS (Clark County, Wis.) 05/08/1875

Hill, George P. (? - 1875)

Last Tuesday evening Hon. James O'Neill received the sad intelligence of the death of Mr. Geo. P. Hill, a former resident of this place, at the hands of a prowling band of Mexican desperadoes at a place called Homeville, in Texas. Mr. Hill is well remembered by nearly all of the old residents of this part of the county as an honorable, upright man, and the announcement of his death, under any circumstances, would have been received with regret by his old friends and neighbors, but the brutal and cowardly manner in which it was brought about calls for both sympathy and resentment. At the breaking out of the war Mr. H. was engaged in opening up a farm near Rexer's Corners, and within a few miles of this place (Neillsville, Clark County). He enlisted in the Second Wisconsin, serving faithfully throughout the war. During 1865 he was stationed at Fort Brown, Texas, to which place he returned after being mustered out of the service. We give below an account of the murder as published in a paper issued near where the crime was perpetrated:

News was received here that Mr. George P. Hill was murdered on the 16th h inst., about half-mile from his house, on his ranch at Homeville, a settlement, about thirty miles above this city, beyond the Arroyo Colorado, started by Americans in small farms a few years ago.

Mr. Hill and his son went out on the morning of the sixteenth to hunt horses, each taking a different direction, and agreeing to meet at a certain point. The son came to the place agreed upon first and waited for his father until evening and then went home. Search was made and on Sunday his body was found riddled with bullets, and very much swollen. There were three bullet holes in the body and it was stripped of its clothing.

Mr. Hill was a good citizen and an inoffensive man. He was one of the State Police for this county during the latter part of its existence, and made a good officer. He came here with the army in 1865, and worked in the quartermaster's department of Fort Brown, and was about one of the last that was discharged, when the works at that post were completed.

He purchased a homestead in the Homeville tract, with other Americans, and opened a farm. The seasons being dry and no crops were made, and most of the settlers abandoned their farms, but he remained, hoping to retrieve his losses. This foul murder of an industrious and inoffensive man, who leaves a wife and four children, shows how brutal the thieves have become. That it was the thieves that died the deed there is no doubt, for five of them were seen passing through that part of the country.

Mr. Hill, we understand, was from Wisconsin at a place called Nealsville, and owns a piece of land near that town, which we understand has become valuable since he left that section."