BIO: Stephen HILLS, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, page 165.
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  HILLS, STEPHEN, the architect of the State Capitol of Pennsylvania, 
was the fifth child of John and Sarah (Lewis) Hills, who were married 
in December, 1755, and had a family of seven sons and a daughter.  
Stephen, the fourth son, was born at Ashford, Kent county, England, 
August 10, 1771.  According to the custom of the times, he was "bound 
out for seven years" and apprenticed to a local house-wright, living in 
his "master's" family until his twenty-first birthday. In 1794 he 
married Margaret Ashby, of Pluckley, a parish village about five miles 
from Ashford.  He was the first of five brothers who came to America, 
arriving at Boston in either 1796 or 1797.  His brothers Richard and 
William joined him in 1801, and subsequent to his departure for this 
city, about 1802, his brothers George and Joseph, and their widowed 
mother, came to the United States and settled in the capitol of New 
England.
  While a resident of Boston he was actively engaged in business and 
built several houses.  The building erected for his own home in 1799, 
in what was then the outskirts of the town, still stands in what is now 
a very thickly settled part of Boston.  The city's geographical center 
has passed it, and is now nearly a mile beyond its location.  At how 
early a date he became a resident of Harrisburg is not known to his New 
England relatives, but it is believed that he built many of the houses 
of that city which were erected in the earlier part of the present 
century.  His plans for the capitol of Pennsylvania were adopted, and 
he was the builder as well as the architect of that edifice, the 
cornerstone of which was laid May 31,1819.
  While on a visit to England his wife, Margaret Hills, died at 
Harrisburg, on Sunday, August 4, 1822, in the 51st year of her age, 
leaving four children.  Sarah, who married November 26, 1821, Samuel 
White, and subsequently removed to Indianapolis, where she was living 
in 1845, and three sons, John, Stephen, and Thomas.  Before returning 
to America Mr. Hills again married, and was for a short time once more 
a resident of Harrisburg.  About 1825 he went to England for the last 
time and remained there about eleven years, and in the winter of 1836-7 
returned to the United States.  He is described by those who knew him 
at this time as a man of large frame, weighing about two hundred and 
fifty pounds.  In the spring of 1837 he went to Jefferson city to build 
the capitol for the State of Missouri.  The plans made for the 
Pennsylvania structure were accepted for this edifice, and so closely 
followed that the building was practically a duplicate of his earlier 
work.  Immediately following the completion of the capitol, he 
commenced the erection of the university at Columbia, in that State, 
and finished his contract in the spring of 1843.  He then retired from 
his profession and went to his farm in the western part of Illinois 
(about twelve miles from St. Louis).  Here he died, October 17, 1844, 
leaving a widow and her children, two daughters and a son; and a son, 
daughter, and six grandchildren as descendants of himself and Margaret 
Ashby, his first wife.