Progressive Men of Iowa
1899

GRISWOLD, Henry J., of Winthrop Buchanan county, who represented that county in the legislature for two sessions, was born in Janesville, Wis., November 13, 1858, and is a son of Harvey Griswold, of Fortsville, N. Y., and Mary E. Dillenbeck, of Janesville, Wis. His father died on Christmas day, 1883. The family came to Iowa when Henry was 5 years old and settled on a farm near Winthrop. His boyhood and youth were spent here, where he followed the usual life of a farmer's boy, attending the district school in wintertime and working on the farm when his services were needed. At the age of 17, having passed a satisfactory examination, he began to teach school, and followed that vocation for about three years. Then for a short time he was engaged with a mercantile establishment, but this work did not agree with his health and he was obliged to seek outdoor employment. In the spring of 1882 he removed to Plankinton, S. D., and entered a half section of land. He erected the customary settler's "shack" and lived the independent and carefree life of a bachelor on his claim for about two years, greatly to the benefit of his health. During this time he took the census of the county and surveyed and divided the civil townships of the county into school districts and located the school districts in the county. He had previously acted as census enumerator in Iowa for the census of 1880.

In the fall of 1883 he returned to Iowa and was married January 24, 1884, to Miss Marie J. Risk, of Winthrop. He at once engaged in the lumber and grain business in Winthrop, and has remained in business in that place ever since, being now the proprietor of a large mercantile establishment. Mr. Griswold was unanimously nominated to the office of representative for Buchanan county by the republicans in 1893, and in 1895 he had no opposition for a second term. During his service in the legislature Mr. Griswold was chairman of the committee on mines and mining and served on several other equally, or more, important committees.  He was an industrious and unobtrusive member, belonging to the class who advance legitimate legislation without making show about it. He had a large influence in the house because he was considered a reliable and conservative man who did not take a position on any question without careful consideration of its merits. Upon the organization of the house in 1896 Mr.  Griswold was among the three or four men who were considered for the speakership.  In the year 1897 he was a member of the state central committee. In his own county Mr. Griswold is known as a public-spirited and reliable businessman; an active and influential republican and a true friend.  For a number of years he has been a member of the First Congregational church, filling the position of trustee. He belongs to the Masonic order. Mr. and Mrs.  Griswold have two children: Grace E., born November 15, 1884, and Dale A., born March 15, 1890.

HILL, Gekshom Hyde, A. M., M. D., superintendent of the hospital for the insane at Independence, Iowa, was born in Garnaville, Clayton county, Iowa, May 8, 1846, and is descended from Peter Hill, who, with his son Roger, came from the west of England in 1653, and settled in the state of Maine. Dr. Hill's grandfather was once a member of congress from Maine and was noted for his hospitality. James J. Hill, his father, was a member of the famous "Iowa Band of Congregational Home Missionaries," who graduated from Andover, Mass., Theological seminary in 1843.  He was a graduate of Bowdoin college and a native of Bath, Me., as was also his wife, Sarah E. Hyde; they were married April 24, 1844, and immediately set out for the west. One of her sisters was the wife of the Rev. Dr. Magoun, of Grinnell, and the other of Rev. Dr. Alden, of Boston. The young minister left his wife in Dubuque, in June, and went up into Clayton county to spy out the land on which he would locate. Their second son, James Langdon, now a minister in Salem, Mass., was also born in Garnaville.  In 1849, the family moved to Albany, 111., just across the Mississippi river from Sabula, where the father continued to preach.  Here the mother died in 1852. She was a strong, intellectual, enthusiastic and warm-hearted woman; an earnest, hopeful Christian. In October, 1853, Mr. Hill was married to Sarah Wells Harriman, and took charge of the Congregational church in Savannah, 111. She was a New Hampshire woman, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke college, in Massachusetts; she proved to be a good step-mother and a capable minister's wife.  The family moved to Wapello, Louisa county, in 1856, and to McLeod county, Minn., in 1858, where amid Indians and the extreme rigors and privations of pioneer life, with scanty fare, they lived for a time in a log cabin, and the children acquired part of their education in a log schoolhouse.

They returned to Iowa just before the massacre of 1860, and located in Grinnell, for the purpose of giving the children a college education. Here Gershom became intimately acquainted with the founder of the town, the Hon. J. B. Grinnell, and was employed by him at one time cultivating corn on his land just north of the college grounds. In June, 1861, Gershom took a half dozen refugees from the home of Mr.  Grinnell, who was known to keep a station on the "underground railway," and conveyed them by night to Marengo, then the terminus of the Rock Island railroad, from which point they were furnished transportation to Canada by Mr. Grinnell. For this service he was given a Suffolk pig valued at $10. He attended the public schools in Grinnell four winters and in December, 1863, began to teach a country school in Marshall county.

In May, 1864, as soon as he was 18 years old, he enlisted in Company B, Forty-sixth Iowa volunteers, and served four months under Col.  D. B. Henderson, at Colliersville, Tenn.  Returning from the war, Gershom was employed as teamster for a time. In June, 1865, the family moved to Fayette, Iowa, where the father became pastor of the Congregational church, and there died in 1870.  In the fall of 1865 the two Hill brothers entered the preparatory department of Iowa college in Grinnell and, by working in the harvest fields in the summer and teaching school in the winter vacation, they worked their way through college, being classmates throughout, and completed the classical course in 1871.  Gershom at once began to study medicine, first in the medical department of the State University of Iowa and later in the Rush Medical college in Chicago, graduating there in 1874. After several months' practice in Moline, 111., he was elected first assistant physician of the hospital for the insane in Independence. In October, 1881, Dr. Hill was promoted to the superintendence, which office he continues to hold.

The institution was opened in 1873, and when Dr. Hill went there contained but 200 patients, while now it accommodates more than 1,000. Dr. Hill's record in this institution is that of progress is the humane and scientific treatment of the insane. The hospital under his management has gone quietly along without sensational incidents. Its superintendent combines the three qualities so difficult to obtain in one man and yet each is absolutely requisite for this important position: a scientific knowledge, business capacity and executive ability. Dr. Hill has few superiors as an able, conscientious manager, both from a medical and a financial standpoint. The institution over which he presides compares favorably with any of its kind in the United States and he has been highly complimented by the board of control for his admirable methods. He has attended two post-graduate courses in medicine, one in New York, in 1878, and one in Boston, in 1890. He writes for the medical journals and is frequently called upon as an expert on insanity.

He belongs to numerous medical societies in Iowa and to the American Medical association, the American Academy of Medicine, the Medico-Legal society of Now York and the American Medico-Psychological association. He is president of the board of directors of the Independence Y. M. C. A. and is an elder in the Presbyterian church. He is a life member of the board of trustees of his alma mater in Grinnell and is a lecturer on insanity in the medical department of the State University of Iowa. His father, in 1846, gave the first dollar to found Iowa college, and the brothers, Gershom and James, have together established a prize for excellence in extemporaneous debate and in vocal music.

Dr. Hill was married in 1879 to Louisa B. Ford, in Lynn, Mass. They have one child, Julia, born in 1886. Dr. Hill is an earnest republican.

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