Saguache County CO Archives Biographies.....Hills, Francis Marion November 10, 1838 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 8, 2006, 12:50 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     Some men are born to own property, and can animate all their possessions.

And in the eye of a cold and calculating reason, perhaps only they should own

who can administer, they whose work carves out work for more and opens a path

for all.  For he is the rich man in whom the people are rich, and he is poor in

whom they are poor.  The fullness of health in the former answers its own ends,

and runs over and has much to spare wherewith to inundate other men’s

necessities.  Men of this class build factories and railroads, they develop

mines and bring the wealth of new regions into the channels of trade, they found

systems of commerce and sail all seas to foster them, they see the hidden

treasures of the wilderness and command them to come forth, they put in motion

the forces to compel obedience to the command, and needing a fulcrum for their

lever, they start a town, and soon the wilds around them become as the garden of

God, rejoining on every side, laughing, clapping its hands, and bringing forth

in abundance everything nourishing, and useful and valuable, which it has held

in reserve.  To this class belongs Francis Marion Hills, of Villagrove, Saguache

county, the founder of the town and its first resident.  After a long and trying

career, full of adventure and incident, he located in this region and at once

began to plan for its peopling and development with results already cheeringly

great and full of promise for future good of much greater magnitude.  Mr. Hills

was born in McHenry county, Illinois, near the town of Marengo, on November 10,

1838, and is the son of Calvin and Annisteen (Mead) Hills, natives of the sate

of New York, who passed the greater part of their married life in Illinois,

dying there after many years of serviceable labor, the mother in 1876, and the

father in 1888.  The father was a skillful carpenter and prospered at his trade.

 He belonged to the Masonic order and was a Republican in politics, while in

church affiliation he and his wife were of the Christian denomination.  They had

nine children, two of whom died in infancy and seven are living, Francis M.,

Martin S., Everill J., Mrs. Frank L. Dodge, Lucian J., Mrs. Roy G. White and

John F.  The first born of these, Francis M., received a good business

education, remaining with his parents until he reached his legal majority, then,

in 1859, impelled by the excitement over the discovery of gold in the

neighborhood of Pike’s Peak, he joined a party of fifteen at Chicago who were

coming to the new region of promise, and with them journeyed by rail to St.

Joseph, Missouri.  Here ox teams were procured and the journey was continued

overland to Fort Kearney.  At that outpost they became convinced that their

undertaking was useless, and the party broke up, some of the number returning

east and Mr. Hills and others proceeding to California.  This company left Fort

Kearney on April 25th and reached their destination in California on September

17th next ensuing.  After his arrival there Mr. Hills was employed in ranch and

livery stable work until 1860, when he went to Puget Sound and for more than a

year worked in the lumber woods skirting that wonderful sheet of water.  In the

fall of 1861 he returned to California and engaged in placer mining and farming,

and three years later made a visit to his old Illinois home, going on water by

way of Nicaragua and returning by way of the isthmus of Panama.  He continued

farming and mining in California until 1873, then came to Colorado and located

at Fairplay, Park county, where he served two years as foreman of the placer

diggings owned by Messrs. Clark & Smith.  In 1875 he went to California Gulch,

but in the fall returned to his ranch near Salida, a property which he and his

brother, E.J. Hills, had bought in 1873, and gave his attention to farming.  Two

years he passed in ranching on that property, and in 1877 returned to California

Gulch, near what is now Leadville, to take charge of the Stephen Wood & Lighter

placer mines, holding the position until the fall of 1878.  At that time he

began prospecting for himself, and this he continued to September, 1879, when he

returned to his ranch near Salida.  In November, 1879, he bought his present

property at Villagrove, and the next year sold his interest in the Salida ranch

and moved to his new home, the only settler at the time in the neighborhood. 

His place was used as a stage station and the changes of teams were made there.

 A boarding house was also conducted on it until 1881, when Mr. Hills surveyed

and laid out the townsite of Villagrove, which he still owns in addition to his

ranch here of five hundred and twenty acres.  Since locating here he has also

conducted a ranch and sheep feeding place in the vicinity of Fort Collins, and

in the years 1894 and 1895 he served as manager of the Hydraulic mines at Salmon

City, Idaho, belonging to Messrs. Hageman & Grant.  One-half of his Saguache

county ranch is under cultivation and yields abundant crops of hay, grain and

vegetables.  While he has been somewhat occupied with other enterprises, his

chief interest has been in this ranch and the surrounding country, and to the

development and improvement of these he has given his best energies and greatest

attention.  He has been a leading man in this country, connected with its

progress in every helpful way, and inspiring its people with his own spirit and

determination to make the most of it.  In 1889, 1890 and 1891 he served as

county commissioner of Saguache county, and many of the most useful and

appreciated public improvements in the county were made during his tenure of

this office and under his influence.  Too much can scarcely be said of his

public-spirit and breadth of view, or of the general esteem in which he is held

as the founder and one of the chief promoters of the prosperity of the section.

 On December 21, 1864, he united in marriage with Miss Mary Allen, a native of

Aurora, Erie county, New York.  They have had five children.  Of these Everill

E. and William J. died, and Mrs. Washington I. Covert, Calvin A. and Mrs. John

H. Parsons are living.  All the family are consistent and conscientious

Seventh-day Adventists in religious faith.   

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

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