Henry Barker Hill. 



1849-1903. 



Henry Barker Hill, Professor of Chemistry and Director 

 of the Chemical Laboratory of Harvard College, died April 6, 

 1903, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, after a brief but painful 

 illness. His death makes an irreparable gap in the ranks of 

 American scientific men. 



Professor Hill's life was a quiet one — the life of an investi- 

 gator in a field of scientific rather than of public interest. His 

 delicate health for years and his retiring disposition prevented 

 many of his colleagues from knowing him well ; hence his true 

 worth has perhaps not been fully appreciated by those outside 

 the circle of his intimate friends. 



The Rev. Thomas Hill, his father, was at one time President 

 of Antioch College, and later, from 1862 to 1868, President of 

 Harvard University. In 1845 Thomas Hill married Miss Anne 

 Foster Bellows, and on April 27, 1849, Henry Barker Hill was 

 born. Having spent his later school days in Cambridge, he 

 entered Harvard College in 1865 at the age of sixteen years. 

 Here his unusual versatility was soon recognized by his early 

 companions, who felt that with so many possibilities the choice 

 of a profession must be difficult. His mathematical ability was 

 rare ; he possessed a keen and sympathetic taste for music, and 

 his literary and philological instincts were strong. When the 

 decision was made, however, there was no swerving or falter- 

 ing in the path. After graduation in 1869, he went to Berlin, 

 where he studied chemistry for a year with A. W. Hofmann. 

 On returning to America he was made assistant in chemistry in 

 Harvard University, a post which he held for four years. At 

 the age of twenty-five he was promoted to an assistant pro- 

 fessorship, and ten years afterwards became full professor. 



The always increasing administrative duties of the growing 

 Department of Chemistry were divided on the death of Pro- 

 fessor Josiah Parsons Cooke in 1894, and Professor Hill was 

 given the responsibility of the management of the laboratory as 



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