GILMER  COUNTY, GA - BIOS Hill, William Franklin

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WILLIAM FRANKLIN HILL, of Ellijay, in Gilmer county, and a
prominent citizen of that county, was born near Asheville,
Buncombe Co., N. C. , on July 5, 1834.  At the age of ten
years he moved to Gilmer county with his parents, and
settled on a farm near which he now lives.  There he grew up
to manhood, taking advantage of such opportunities for
obtaining an education as the pioneer condition of the
country then efforded.  At the age of seventeen he taught
school, and at intervals engaged in agricultural pursuits
until the commencement of the war.  In May, 1862, he entered
the Confederate service, enlisting as a private in the
Sixty-Fifth Georgia Regiment infantry, commanded by Col. G.
W. Foster.  His regiment was attached to Jackson's brigade,
in Hardee's corps.  He participated in the battles of
Tanner's Ferry, Kennesaw Mountain, Dallas, Jonesborough, and
in the siege of Atlanta.  He fought at Franklin, Tenn., and
took part in the stampede at Nashville.  He was surrendered
by Gen. Joe Johnston near Greensborough, N. C., on April 26,
1865.  On his return home, he again engaged in school
teaching and farming, and in 1877, he was elected to the
office of school commissioner of Gilmer county, since which
time he has continued to serve the people in that office
with ability and has given universal satisfaction.  Mr. Hill
certainly ranks high as a commissioner of schools among the
best educators of the state, and his services have been
invaluable to the people of his county.  Mr. Hill was
married Jan. 11, 1857, to Ann Osborn, daughter of Rev. N. R.
Osborn, a well-known Baptist minister of Gilmer county, and
still living in his eighty-ninth year.  Five children were
born of this marriage: Callie, the wife of Calvin Searcy, of
Ellijay-she has six living children; John R., who married
Miss Maggie Searcy, of Ellijay-they have three children;
Joseph Lee, a resident of Arkansas and unmarried; Edward, a
Baptist minister, who married Miss Sally Harper, of Gilmer
county, and Mollie, who resides with her parents and is
unmarried.  The father of Mr. Hill was William Hill, of
Rutherford county, N. C., where he was born in 1799.  He
died in Gilmer county in 1883.  The mother of Mr. Hill was
Martha De Bord, born in Rutherford county, N. C., about 1800
and died in Gilmer county in 1885.  Mr. Hill is of a family
of thirteen children.  For thirty years he has been an
active member of the Baptist church. He is a man of broad
views, active, aggressive and progressive, and he has done
much to advance the prosperity of Gilmer county.

Source: Memoirs of Georgia published 1895 by The Southern
Historical Association