New Britain herald., 1918-03-08
HILL EULOGIzED
 BY CONGRESSMEN
, Glowing Tributes to Memory of
 Deceased Connecticut Legislator
Especial to the Herald)

Especial to the Herald)
 Washington, D, C., March S.-Sel
 dom in the history of Congress hay. more glowing tributes been paid to { deceased member than the eulosie.
 delivered to the memory of Repre
 sentative Ebenezer J. Hill of Con necticut, one Of the veteran mem ber. of the house. Republicans and dem. ocrats alike paid tribute to the mem. ory of the Connecticut man and some Of the most prominent members in Congress rose to praise his may . good works and his virtues Ihc opening speaker was Representative Nj Merrftt, who was elected as his suc- cessor. Some of the eulogtes follow:
 Mir. Merritt:
 MT. Speaker, 1t is hard for me to appreciate that I speak here pot merely as MT. Hills friend and con- sutuent but as his successor. He had Tor So many years and so adequate- ly represented the district that he had become an institution, and, l may add, an institution which the district and the country could i'll afford to lose. The district regarded him with confidence in his honesty and WIS., dom, and those who knew him, with affection, also. While it is true that he was a strong party man, 1t is true, also, that he regarded all individuals and all interests in his district as un- < der his care, and they received it, Democrats and Republicans alike. so that after election was over all par ties regarded him as their Represen- tative and he accepted the trust in that broad way. He had a peculiar icrbf tn Esa fol There have been in this country no hereditary titles or privileges, but fortunately there are some families with hereditary ability and character. The Hill family is one of these, and it's paternal ancestors have been res- idents in Fairfield County from it's earliest settlement. Andrew Ward, the only man appointed by the Col ny of Massachusetts on both it's Com- mittee of the Church and Committee of the State to organize the Colony of Connecticut, was an ancestor.
 William Hill, the first Hill ances- tor in America, was a member of the first colonial Connecticut Legislature, at Hartford, and so continued until his death.
 Two hundred and fifty years later his descendant, Ebenezer J. Hill, was member of that same legislature. by that time, however, the 1egislatu ture of a sovereign State.
 During that interval of two hun, dred and fifty years there was no time when members of the family were not serving the church and state.
 The Rev. John Jones, of Concord, l Mass. the first minister of the town l of Fairfield, was an ancestor, and was l publicly recognized as active in for, l warding the interests of the colony.
 Many other persons prominent in the county history from colonial times down to the present are among his ancestors.
 And study of this ancestry shows also how and why he was among the earliest to form and avow the conviction that women should have equal rights and opportunities with men.
 MT. Hills own mother was the wife of a minister of Hartford, and when her husband was ill for some weeks she conducted the services to the satisfaction of the congregation His grandfather Hill was one of the early MethodiSts in Connecticut and also leading abolitionist and suffered considerable persecution on that account
 His maternal ancestors were-l Scotch and came to Portland, Me, then called Falmouth and under the jurisdiction of the Colony of Massa- chusetts.
 "These ancestors were of the same sort, and, being nearer the frontier, took even more active part in the Indian and colonial wars.
 ''Pacifists were at that period neither popular nor numerous, and if there were any slackers they were not in the Hill ancestry.
 "Time will not permit to follow this inquiry over the seas, but it is of interest to note that the wife of the first Hill in America was the dauGh- ter of Ignatius Jourdain, who was deputy mayor of Exeter, in England and he, during a plague, when the mayor had fled, remained at his post and did almost superhuman reIiee work. Later he was summoned be- fore the star chamber under the Stu arts for refusing to yield his religious convictions.
 And so, to represent this line of God-f fearing and man-serving people, Ebenezer J. Hill was born in Red ding, Conn, in 1845.
 "This lineage and this background were a precious inheritance and 8 strong incentive, and well did he profit from the first and respond to the second.
 His ability and industry were early shown by the fact that he passed his entrance examination for Yale at the age of fl, but owing to