ae Seal 
BRIEFER ARTICLES 
ELLSWORTH JEROME HILL 
(WITH PORTRAIT) 
E. J. HILt was a well known figure to the Chicago group of botanists. 
For over 40 years he studied the plants of the Chicago region. No one 
was more familiar with them, or had brought so many of them to general 
notice. He was much more than a collector and taxonomist; in addi- 
tion, he was an ecologist before ecology was recognized as a subject. 
He was born at LeRoy, 
New York, December 1, 
1833, and died in Chicago, 
January 22,1917. His early 
life was spent on a farm, in 
which environment he began 
to develop his love of natural 
history. At the age of 19 he 
was taken suddenly lame by 
an affection of the knee, and 
during the rest of his long 
life, with intervals of relief, 
this troubleaccompanied hi 
After his first trouble, to eet 
away from the northern 
winter, he went to Mississippi 
and taught for three years in 
a woman’s college at Grenada, 
afterward returning to New 
York. In 1860 he began a 
theological course in Union Theological Seminary, graduated in + 10h, 
and engaged in pastoral work until 1869, when another attack of 
lameness incapacitated him for two years. He then became a teacher 
again, first in the high school of Kankakee, Illinois, for four years, and 
then for fourteen years in the high school of Englewood, now a part of a 
Chicago. In gee he gave up teaching and seiotens et eae oo 
: entirely to botany. 
