The Hill family represented in these papers resided in Morristown for almost 100 years. Thomas Olney Hill, the patriarch of this branch of the family arrived in New Jersey as a young man sometime before the summer of 1874, intent upon building lasting financial success.

T. Olney Hill was born into the sometimes prosperous family of Thomas O. and Hannah Fox Hill of Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1846. Thomas Sr. met Hannah–a practicing Quaker--in New York and they married there in 1835 and then moved to Detroit where they had relatives. Thomas's father, Holden Hill, died young and left his family financially vulnerable. In Detroit, Thomas O. began work as a bank teller to support his own growing family. While there, Hannah bore three daughters in seven years--Louise, Mary and Alice Elizabeth. The family's fortunes improved dramatically when Thomas moved to Ypsilanti and purchased a flour mill in 1841. The Irish famine in 1847 produced a rise in wheat prices, resulting in a financial windfall for Hill. T. Olney was born during this time--the youngest child and only son. Shortly thereafter, his father moved the family to Cleveland, Ohio and entered the local banking business. While in Cleveland, two of the daughters married, including Alice Elizabeth. Although never in good health, Alice made an advantageous and harmonious marriage to John T. Whitelaw, president of the National City Bank in Cleveland. Financial setbacks--including a disastrous bank failure--beginning in the late 1850s and. the untimely deaths of their three daughters in the 1860s, sent Thomas and Hannah back to their roots in Lansingburg, New York where they lived out their last years.

Following his parents’ departure, T. Olney remained in Cleveland and by 1863 was living with his brother-in-law, John Whitelaw. By 1874 Hill had left for the East Coast and settled in the New York City area. He began his career in Manhattan as a banker and broker, teaming up with Robert Mott in an office on Broad Street. With the help of Mott’s father-in-law, they landed a few valuable accounts with successful results. T. Olney changed residences several times, moving between New Jersey and New York and occasionally living with his parents in Lansingburg. By 1883 he had also changed jobs, advancing to the brokerage firm of Parsons, Bramwell and Company. A few years later T. Olney helped found Whittemore, Musgrave and Hill--a Wall Street brokerage firm with offices again on Broad Street. He remained there until his declining mental health–among other problems–forced his early retirement.

During these early years in New York City, T. Olney Hill continued to struggle with his family's tradition of fiscal instability. In one letter to his father, he worried about having enough money to "live comfortably" and fretted about relying on the whims of the stock market for income. Monetary concerns would continue to haunt him and negatively impact the family dynamic for years to come. Present in almost every letter he wrote is his obsession with finances. When he and his brother-in-law lived together and shared a bedroom, John Whitelaw reported to his wife that Olney talked in his sleep–but only about finances.

Among T. Olney’s letters is testimony to his loneliness while living in New York and New Jersey. This would change by 1888 when he met Bessie Muir Fisher of Morristown, fifteen years his junior. They may have been introduced through a mutual friend. The relationship quickly blossomed, substantiated by Bessie Fisher’s letters to him which began with gracious cordiality and progressed to professions of love and passion. In December 1889, Bessie addressed her letters to “My dear Mr Hill”. A short month later, Mr Hill became “My one True Heart”. The correspondence also proved Bessie to be a straightforward, articulate woman, not shy in conveying mood or emotion. The courtship resulted in an engagement, and T. Olney and Bessie were married at Morristown’s Church of the Redeemer on June 26, 1890.

Bessie Fisher Hill was born in New York in 1861, the daughter of Charles A. and Susan Muir Fisher and the granddaughter of General Alexander Muir--a distinguished veteran of the War of 1812. Charles Fisher was an ardent Republican, having political in Morris and Bergen County circles. He had been a superintendent at the New Jersey State Hospital at Greystone Park until retirement. In their final years the Fishers shared quarters with their daughter and her family at 28 Franklin Place. Mrs. Fisher died in the spring of 1894, her husband the following spring. Bessie was also a cousin to William Egbert, a successful Morristown developer and architect. For a time in the 1880s, Bessie and her mother boarded with the Egbert family at their home on Maple Avenue. Mr. Fisher’s whereabouts at that time are unknown. William Egbert built the home at 30 Franklin Place where the Hill family eventually settled.

Bessie and T. Olney had three daughters, all born in Morristown: Alice Leslie, born at home, on June 8, 1891, then Constance Muir on December 18, 1894 and finally Ursula Elizabeth on May 20, 1896. The family moved often during their childhood. The daughters still lived at home when in December 1919, Bessie’s aunt, Elizabeth Scott, bequeathed $15,000–described as a fortune in the local newspaper—in her will to her niece. This settlement most likely facilitated the purchase of the handsome Victorian house at 30 Franklin Place from the estate of Edward Dobbins (Col. Dobbins purchased the property from William Egbert’s estate in 1887) in 1920. However this windfall did not alleviate their usual penurious state for very long.

From outward appearances the Hill family reflected the model example set by Morristown’s preeminent upper class. Mr. and Mrs. Hill were listed in Morristown’s Social Register. The family belonged to many of the area’s elite organizations that were noted for their rigorous membership requirements, including the Morristown Club and the Morris County Golf Club. Mrs. Hill occupied her time with professional business groups and benevolent institutions, with a particular interest in the Women’s Employment Society. For a time she also served on the Board of Managers of Neighborhood House. The Hill girls attended select private schools. The names of family members appeared regularly in the society columns of The Jerseyman newspaper and Morristown Topics, a local paper devoted to the interests of Morristown Society. The ladies of the family occasionally hosted small parties and attended luncheons, outings and entertainments. When youngest daughter Ursula announced her engagement to Edward P Thebaud, Jr in 1921, her photograph appeared on the coveted Page One spot of Morristown Topics. W. Parsons Todd, a former mayor of the city and philanthropist, acted as a special friend and benefactor to the household.

Despite this evidence of proper society credentials, the Hill family never commanded the respect they craved from their peers. The idiosyncratic dynamic of the household was not conducive to the constraints of upper class society. Those residents who recall the family dismissed them as social climbers who put on false airs and attempted to be part of a social caste that would never accept them because of their mercurial financial status and their inability to conform to the genteel standards of the day. The family fabricated a story that T. Olney was best man to Hamilton Twombly at his 1877 wedding to Florence Vanderbilt. It’s doubtful that he would have received an invitation to the event. Another canard perpetrated by family members was that Hill Street–adjoining Franklin Place–was named for the family. A glance at FW Beers’ Atlas of Morris County shows Hill Street was in place before 1868, long before the Hills arrived in Morristown. Rumors and stories of their intemperate behavior and financial woes passed through the community and ensured that the family would never bask in the welcome embrace of Morristown’s gentry. Typical of these tales was an account told by a fellow parishioner at Church of the Redeemer. As members of the church, the Hills rented a pew. One year at Easter services, some unfortunate soul unknowingly sat in their pew and Mrs. Hill created a row, demanding that the offender exit the pew immediately and attracting the attention of the congregation. In his sermon the following Sunday, Reverend Thomas Attridge spoke of individuals who were “full of vinegar” and admonished his audience to practice the Golden Rule.

Monetary concerns continued to preoccupy the family. T. Olney Hill attempted to borrow money from family members and friends during the 1890s, and his correspondence outlined desperate schemes to regain fiscal security. The Panic of 1893, that threw four million people out of work and generated thousands of business failures across the country, created overwhelming financial strain within Hill’s firm and turmoil within the family. His wife agonized over unpaid bills that he refused to honor. The affectionate letters professing wifely devotion and support disappeared. Instead, Mrs. Hill accused her husband of hoarding money in a secret place and failing to provide for his family. The family apparently drifted from crisis to crisis. Battered by internal demons and domestic hardship, T. Olney’s mental health deteriorated. Shortly after their last child was born, Mr. Hill was institutionalized in a private sanitarium in New York. The doctor treating him there described his condition as a “complete mental breakdown.” Stephen Pierson, the family’s physician in Morristown, concurred. Letters during this time suggested a fragile household struggling with the added emotional and financial chaos that bred myriad medical ailments. The Hill women suffered from a variety of 19th-century maladies that included nervous conditions and sick headaches.

During his convalescence T. Olney began to think that farming was an appropriate occupation for him. The rector at Church of the Redeemer encouraged his plan to begin “an out-of-door life”. Mr. Hill never returned to his New York City firm after being institutionalized, nor is there any evidence that he found other employment. In 1901 Richard Whittemore, one of his partners in the firm, accused him of misappropriating $25,000 of a client’s funds for personal use. A lawsuit–and more trauma for the family–ensued. T. Olney Hill declared that he was not accountable for his bad acts. “His disturbed state” precluded him from acting in a competent manner. He blamed his troubles on “that rascal Whittemore and the misdeeds of others.” He tried to persuade his local physician to come to his defense, but Dr Pierson declined his overtures. Without success, T. Olney attempted to confer with Mahlon Pitney for a remedy to his legal troubles. The lawsuit’s outcome is not documented nor can it be determined whether Mr. Hill’s actions constituted fraud or mismanagement.

Sometime after his affliction had abated, T Olney Hill wrote a long missive detailing the circumstances and events of his life following the Panic of 1893. Ostensibly he wrote it as a defense against the actions of his partner, Richard Whittemore and the embezzlement charges leveled against him. However, the document emerged as therapy for Mr. Hill, who had not yet come to grasp his circumstances and all that he lost. He admitted to drinking excessively and taking opiates. He recalled the oppressive anxiety and “the dreadful beating and pounding in my head,” and mentioned a stay at the “Morris Plains Asylum.” His condition slowly worsened and his obsessive and paranoid behavior became increasingly apparent. At the “acme of my agony” in September 1896, he apparently overdosed on whiskey and codeine tablets. By November he was out of control and in an extreme psychotic state, so his family committed him to Dr. Ferguson’s Clinic in upstate New York. His worst symptoms continued for more than six months, and he remained institutionalized for an unknown time after that.

The Wall Street firm of Whittemore, Musgrave and Hill dissolved, and Mr. Hill retired from business and remained at home, hoping to live the life of a gentleman farmer and futilely attempting to publish assorted manuscripts he wrote. In subsequent years T. Olney’s status in the household was inconsequential. When the children were small, Mr. Hill acted as an affectionate father, bestowing fanciful nicknames on his girls and writing whimsical prose to entertain them. Following his long illness, his very presence in the family faded away as he was relegated to the shadows of domestic life. T. Olney Hill died in1926 at the age of 81. Although obituaries in The New York Times and The Daily Record reported that he died at home, T. Olney was admitted to Greystone Hospital on November 29, where he remained until his death seven days later. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in a large plot purchased by Bessie’s cousin, William Egbert.

Bessie Hill, despite her own medical and psychological complaints, vigorously worked to keep her family financially afloat. Before her marriage, Mrs. Hill managed a small inn in Maine and acquired some business experience with which she would build upon in her husband’s absence. The family rented various farming properties–one with dairy cows. She became closely involved in its day to day operations, providing income for her household with the sale of local dairy products. One neighbor recalls Mrs. Hill as an elderly woman, driving a cart around surrounding neighborhoods, prodding local residents to buy her milk. Bessie oversaw all aspects of the family’s financial accounts and business dealings with her assertive style. Correspondence with the local Board of Health offers insight into her temperament. After two daughters’ confinement in the Contagion Ward of Memorial Hospital with Scarlet Fever, she received notice of unpaid medical bills. Mrs. Hill wrote an indignant letter, ranting about “false reports abroad concerning the condition of our house” and offering a convoluted explanation for their failure to pay the hospital. Mrs. Hill, or sometimes Alice, would usually write these letters and sign Mr. Hill’s name.

Following T. Olney Hill’s death, Mrs. Hill, Alice Leslie and Constance continued to live a fractious life at home with Connie’s salary from her clerical job in New York City providing the primary source of income. The family also took in boarders. Ursula left Morristown following her marriage in 1921. She moved to Utica, New York where her husband was manager of a trout factory. She died in 1983 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Bessie Muir Fisher Hill died February 4, 1955 at Morristown Memorial Hospital. She is buried beside her husband in Evergreen Cemetery. With her passing, the Hill name was dropped from Morristown’s Social Register.

Alice Leslie, the Hill’s eldest child, was a lifelong resident of Morristown. She was named for her Aunt Alice Elizabeth, T. Olney's beloved sister. Of course, there is mention of money in her baby book. Following her birth, her parents opened an account at Morris County Savings Bank with two gold dollars. Baptized at Church of the Redeemer, Alice Leslie was an active participant in the Church throughout her life. Known as Leslie, the child had an Irish nurse, but when she was ill her father and grandmother Susan Fisher cared for her. According to her mother, the toddler’s “first real punishment” occurred when Alice Leslie was about 18 months old. Because she refused to kiss a visitor to the home, Mrs. Hill wrote that Alice was “shut in a closet for over ½ hour. Found spanking of no avail.” Acquaintances described the adult Alice as sharing the same qualities as her mother. Both grew to be strong, outspoken women with few friends and contentious personalities. Miss Hill enjoyed tennis and golf as a member of the Morristown Field Club and Morris County Golf Club. As a young woman, she also participated in amateur theater. Along with her two sisters, she attended Miss Dana's School on South Street as a day pupil. Ursula, whose childhood nickname was Bobbie, maintained an A average while Alice and Connie were solid B students—taking classes in Astronomy, Physics, Literature, and Roman and Modern History. Although Miss Hill's obituary states that she continued her education at Barnard College in New York, that institution has no record of her attendance.

Miss Hill's interests in politics and civic matters--influenced perhaps by her mother's activities and more generally by the suffrage movement--began early. Her scrapbook of news clippings showcased her preoccupation with assorted local, state and national concerns. The vast number of newspapers from which she clipped suggests Miss Hill was well-versed in current affairs. While her mother and two sisters were often mentioned in the society columns of local newspapers, Miss Hill's name would be found in front page stories regarding topical issues. Morristown city directories listed her occupation as civic organizer (In a 1938 arrest record, police mentioned she was a nurse). In the 1930 United States Federal Census, her occupation was listed as a political speaker, and in 1940, a public and civic organizer. Evidence suggests Miss Hill was rarely being paid for her work; although on occasion, she did seek recompense for her political and civic activities. The business of good works seldom paid.

Throughout much of her life, Miss Hill took on numerous causes and waged often effective campaigns. The picture of Alice Leslie Hill that emerges, after examining her papers and interviewing neighbors and acquaintances, is of a feisty, intense and cantankerous woman who shunned the traditional, circumscribed role allotted to women in the first half of the 20th century. She eschewed the conventional women's sphere of home and family and instead focused her potent energies and intellect on a variety of political, civic and feminist issues. Her most productive years appear to be in the 1920s and 1930s, before she was institutionalized at the New Jersey State Hospital at Greystone Park in 1938.

By the age of 26, Miss Hill was tapped to head the Morris County Schools Industrial Association, an innovative program designed to further develop industrial and home making skills among area youth. Funded with federal and state monies, this presented a rare paid appointment. Miss Hill received an annual salary of $1,300 and had an office at the Morris County Court House.

Most prominent among the organizations that engaged Miss Hill was the New Jersey League of Women Voters (and its local affiliate), the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce and the New Jersey Women's Republican Club. Her preoccupation with so many diverse issues may have stemmed from her work with the League, which championed many social and political causes. After many years as an active member of the Morris County League of Women Voters, Miss Hill served as Secretary Pro Tem of the Efficiency in Government Committee of the NJLWV in 1927, where she was an effective advocate for the adoption of voting machines in New Jersey. She was invited to the State Capitol to attend a hearing held by the State Commission for the Revision of the Election Law, where she had prepared a memorandum that was filed with the Commission. Sometime after her appointment as Secretary Pro Tem, Miss Hill was elected to the Board of Directors of the NJLWV and remained in that capacity until 1934. During these years, she continued to hold various positions in the local League that garnered her frequent mention in the local newspaper. In 1931, after showing interest in upcoming Juvenile Court legislation, she was appointed to a committee assigned to study conditions affecting incarcerated juveniles in Morris County. Similar appointments followed. Several articles in the State League's magazine, Civic Pilot, appeared under Miss Hill's byline. She wrote a pamphlet entitled, Guide for Election Workers in 1927 and collaborated with Francis Hamilton on a Digest of New Jersey Election Laws. Miss Hill's service and commitment to the organization's mission and its goals are readily documented in the papers of the New Jersey League of Women Voters, located in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Alexander Library at Rutgers University.

In the early part of this century, the League of Women Voters vigorously publicized the work of the birth control movement. The extent of Miss Hill's own involvement with this controversial issue can be gauged in some measure from her papers. She was a counselor with the Morristown chapter of the New Jersey Birth Control League in the 1930s. Locally she set up programs and forums to study and promote the cause and regularly received relevant publications, including Margaret Sanger's own medium, Birth Control Review. Through the Morris County Library, she attempted to get a copy of an illustrated medical manual relevant to contraception, but was denied. Only physicians were allowed to consult the publication.

In the spring of 1972, Professor James Frazier, of Fairleigh Dickenson University, interviewed Miss Hill, and she spoke of her activity in the birth control movement. Miss Hill provided financial support to the crusade and told Professor Frazier that she knew a number of women involved in the movement, including Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett and Maud Lovelace. Mrs. Sanger and colleagues would visit the Hill family in Morristown and would hide out at their residence on occasions when New York City police were searching for them due to their illegal activities promoting contraception reform. Margaret Sanger served as Honorary President to the New Jersey Birth Control League, so perhaps their association began there. In the Library’s Special Collections is a copy of Margaret Sanger’s book, My Fight for Birth Control. Signed by the author, the book contained a kind message inscribed to Alice Leslie Hill–“one of the devoted workers in our Fight and of whom I am most happy to call my friend”.

Miss Hill's association with the New Jersey Women's Republican Club is further testimony to her preoccupation with feminist issues. During the 1920s, she was elected an officer of the Morris County Unit and served in numerous capacities for the group. Her work with the Club occasionally overlapped with her League duties. In 1922, she pushed for a definitive program of study regarding political and legislative topics that affected women citizens and their rights.

Miss Hill's attention to other substantive matters that did not bear the stamp of traditional women's issues--i.e., health, education, welfare--is even more unusual for a woman of her time. Most of society still considered the political arena to be a male domain, unfit for a woman's refined constitution. Females had only won the franchise in 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment. Miss Hill was one of a growing number of women who understood that electoral politics was an ally, not an enemy, to social reform. It was a vulgar but necessary means to a productive end. Alice Hill's writings--and her work--reflected this utilitarian perspective. She labored as a campaign worker for State Senator Arthur Whitney in his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1925 (He lost to Democrat A. Harry Moore, whose anti-Prohibition stance was quite popular with voters). Miss Hill told her friend Marion Orso that along with other individuals devoted to the cause, she would take an armored car to Jersey City to help register blacks and women to vote–an unpopular and potentially dangerous activity. Following the general election of 1926, Miss Hill's documentation of election irregularities in Hudson County was widely reported in area newspapers. She followed up by working for legislation to change regulations pertaining to absentee ballots and voter registration. Alice Leslie Hill’s influence in Republican politics was such that during Herbert Hoover’s successful campaign for president in 1928, she toured the state as a featured speaker at political rallies and meetings. She remained active in politics throughout most of her adult life. Up until her last years, Miss Hill worked at the polls as a challenger.

Pursuing the goals of more efficient government was fundamental to much of Miss Hill's work. She joined an assortment of citizens' committees and when the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce invited her to join the Good Government Council in 1934, she eagerly accepted. Representing more than twenty organizations, the Council was charged with analyzing government costs to achieve a more efficient and economical administration of state and local bureaucracies. The council--with considerable input from Alice Leslie Hill--drafted legislation aimed at reducing operating costs by restructuring government agencies and procedures. She worked with many politicians and officials, including State Senator Frank Abell from Morris County. His involvement in state government reorganization was only one of many interests he shared with Miss Hill. Senator Abell's daughter recollects that Miss Hill would telephone their home at all hours of the day or night to discuss political matters with her father. It does not appear that Miss Hill had many other outlets--particularly as she grew older--in her life other than her work.

Alice Hill's personal life reflected the unruly household in which she lived. Upon scrutiny, her papers and other evidence portray a difficult, contrary woman dealing with declining mental health, a fractious and unstable family, financial hardship and a society that did not respect the life choices she had made. Fiscal worries were a constant strain. Her correspondence indicates that she often badgered colleagues for money. Miss Hill's family had a history of psychiatric disturbances that often created a tense family dynamic. Accusations of violence within and outside the household surrounded Miss Hill. In a detective's report found among the family's papers, there is evidence that Miss Hill was involved in some type of litigation or criminal case, and there were allegations that on several occasions, she assaulted a potential witness. Friends and acquaintances who knew Miss Hill were unfamiliar with the situation, but all believed that she was capable of physical violence. No other information regarding this matter surfaced in the collection or in attempted follow-ups with various county and state agencies.

In November 1938, a disturbance brought the police to the Hill's Franklin Place home. On the complaint of her mother, Miss Hill was arrested and charged as a disorderly person. Patrolmen Stanley Simms and Joseph Tremallo brought her to the New Jersey State Hospital at Greystone Park, where she was committed after an examination by three local doctors. No documentation of a court hearing or further investigation came to light. Fifteen years earlier, as Secretary to the New Jersey Citizens’ Committee for Institutional Development, Miss Hill toured Greystone to investigate allegations of inhumane conditions at the facility. With this incident, Miss Hill became a patient and surely learned in a more intimate way about life among the syphilitics, psychotics, alcoholics and other sad, assorted cases. She remained there for more than two years. A second admission to the hospital occurred in July 1944 and is mentioned in correspondence. In a letter from the Superintendent of Greystone, he stated that Alice Hill was released in October 1946 as "Recovered". From what, we may never know (at the time of discharge, patients were termed Improved, Not Improved, Without Psychosis or Recovered). Patient records are routinely destroyed in accordance with record retention schedules. There are other clues in the Hill papers that suggest the Greystone staff had sincere reservations about Miss Hill's commitment, believing that it was inappropriate and done only at her family's insistence. In correspondence the family’s minister wrote that he spoke to Greystone employees familiar with her case and discovered that “Officials at the hospital did not consider her as needing either treatment or incarceration in such a place. Their intimation was that her family had taken the authority to have her placed there and that was all they could do about it”. Alice's mother was certainly familiar with the hospital and may have still retained some influence there due to her father’s past employment. Had Miss Hill been born a half century later, and reaped present-day society’s more culturally tolerant attitudes and medical alternatives, she almost certainly would not have had to endure the trauma of more than four years in a psychiatric institution.

Inquiries regarding Miss Hill's admissions to the facility should be made to the Medical Records Department at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital. The department may only verify patient admission and discharge dates. It is possible that civil commitment papers relating to Miss Hill's stay might still exist. According to the County Adjustor's Office commitment papers are destroyed thirty years after the patient's release. However County Adjustor Richard Estler believes that the files from the 1940's fell under the County Clerk's jurisdiction, so they may have been preserved despite existing retention schedules. Be advised that civil commitment files are not public records, and may be obtained only with the permission of the patient or a court order.

Recollections of Miss Hill from peers and acquaintances were uniformly harsh and unflattering. Speaking to women who knew her, their dislike was evident in their tone. Like her mother, Alice was known as overbearing and caustic--a curmudgeon. A few neighbors spoke of the animosity between Alice and her sister, Constance. Described by many as, “the pretty one,” and despite evidence of a romantic relationship with a World War I soldier, Connie remained at home and never married. She worked as a clerk in New York City for the Continental Insurance Company until she retired. Sympathy in the neighborhood sided with mild-mannered Connie who took the brunt of her sister's physical and verbal abuse. One woman recalls seeing the sisters after church, Alice pulling Constance along by the arm, berating her as she dragged her down the street. From neighbors' recollections this was not an uncommon sight. One acquaintance remembered that Leslie did not like anyone to disagree with her and would bully almost anyone who tried. And Connie--by many accounts--was often the object of her wrath.

Tenacious and quarrelsome, Miss Hill had little patience for or interest in social amenities. Apparently she was not well liked by or welcomed into Morristown's polite society. Her unorthodox interests, her truculent nature and her erratic mental health were not in keeping with the standards and traditions of Morristown's upper-class women. Yet despite the disapproval of many of her contemporaries for her personal and professional lifestyle, Alice Hill, for many years continued to be a strong and effective advocate for social and political change in New Jersey. Perhaps it was the very qualities that made her a pariah in social circles—opinionated, determined, aggressive—that brought her success in her civic endeavors and made her private life so perplexing.

One of the few favorable profiles of Alice Leslie emerged from a relationship she had with a local resident who attempted to purchase her house in the late 1960s. He found her to be a pleasant woman, cognizant of her surroundings and extremely chatty. Perhaps because of her loneliness, a quick phone call would unfailingly evolve into a lengthy conversation. Then later in her life, Miss Hill met a woman, Marian Orso, who enjoyed her company and spoke approvingly of her achievements.

In later years Miss Hill lived her life as a recluse, rarely leaving her home. Sister Ursula sent a small monthly stipend for support (Ursula died in 1983 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania). After Constance died in 1965 as the result of an automobile accident, Miss Hill lived alone in the rambling Victorian at 30 Franklin Place. A Morristown police officer remembered being called to her home in the early 1970s on a minor complaint. He found a tiny, old woman with a huge mass of hair down to her waist—wild-eyed and frightened. The house was dark, musty and shabby. Miss Hill appeared disoriented and the officer remembered her as a sad and pathetic figure. During these years she had a number of debilitating medical conditions which would have benefitted from hospitalization (including a gangrenous condition affecting her feet, that she contended with by wearing galoshes), but she refused to leave her home–an independent woman until the end. What medical attention she received came from a physician in her neighborhood, Dr Max Flothow, who would come to the house to attend to her. A kindly neighbor would bring over supper if she knew Miss Hill was ill.

Alice Leslie Hill was 81 years old when she died at home on Christmas day, 1972—a probable heart attack. She is buried next to her sister Constance at Evergreen Cemetery. Shortly thereafter the contents of the family home were sold at an estate sale, and the house was purchased by developers. Neighborhood controversy over architectural changes to the building stalled the project, and the house was abandoned. The developers--Franklin Hill Associates--went bankrupt, and an East Orange dentist bought the property. It remained empty, and a fire in 1977, determined by authorities to be arson, destroyed the Hill family home at 30 Franklin Place. On the property today stands an apartment building.