Sheriff Charles Leonedas Hill
THROUGH MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union County, Georgia
Their Descendants...Their
Stories...Their
Achievements
Lifting the Mists of History on
Their Way
of Life
By:
Ethelene Dyer Jones
Sheriff Charles
Leonedas Hill
The Civil War had been over a
little more
than a year when young Charles Leonedas Hill decided to run for sheriff
of Union County, Georgia. He and his family
lived in
Ivy Log, a district in the county bordering on the North Carolina line.
The Hill family had moved from Cherokee County, North Carolina in the 1860's during
the war years.
Charles's parents were Felix Walker Hill (08-07-1806 - 08-24-1883) and Elizabeth
Cooper Hill (10-29-1811
- 11-15-1896).
Three of
Charles's brothers served with distinction in the Civil War. They were
Napoleon
Bonaparte Hill, Abel Hill and Noah Hill. They had all enlisted in
Company A,
29th Regiment of the North Carolina Infantry, Confederate States of America.
Napoleon became a Second Lieutenant, and later, when the unit
reorganized as
Company H, he advanced to Major.
But this story is not about the
war, or
Charles Hill's brothers. Their stories can wait for another time. Felix
W. Hill
and his wife Elizabeth and their family had established a farm along
Reece
Creek in Ivy Log, Union County,
Georgia.
In addition
to being a farmer, Felix Hill had been a traveling peddler where the
family had
lived in South and North
Carolina
before moving to Georgia.
Whether the elder Hill continued this trade route in Union County
is unknown.
Charles Hill ran on the
Democratic ticket
and was elected sheriff of Union County
in November of
1866. Evidently the first few months of his term in service passed with
the
ordinary duties of keeping the law.
Six months into his service, in
May, 1867,
an incident requiring attention came about. A certain William Campbell,
who
lived in a mountain cabin just over the Towns County
line committed a crime in Union
County.
Reportedly, he
robbed a poor widow of all that she had. Since the robbery took place
in Union
County,
and Sheriff Hill was pledged to protecting and bringing justice for
Union
citizens, he endeavored to find Campbell
and arrest him.
Taking his deputies with him,
Sheriff Hill
made his way through Gum Log and to the cabin on Crane Creek in western
Towns County,
close by the Union
County line.
The story goes that he asked his
deputies
to remain on the mountain, in close proximity, as the sheriff himself,
unarmed
and walking, approached the cabin where Campbell
was living.
Evidently the sheriff intended
to persuade Campbell
to surrender and
stand trial for the crime of theft. Reportedly, the man was accused of
other
thefts in the area, not just the one when he had robbed the poor widow.
But surrender was not in the
mind of Will
Campbell. Two stories have been told of the incident. One version is
that
Sheriff Hill tried to talk Campbell
into surrendering, but when he did not come out of hiding, Hill took an
axe
from a woodpile in the yard and began to cut the door open. That is
when Campbell
aimed at Hill
and shot him.
Another version is that Campbell
himself
opened the door a crack, just enough to put the barrel of his pistol in
the
opening and aim at the advancing sheriff.
The deputies waiting on the
mountainside
heard the shot and went immediately to the scene. They found Sheriff
Hill with
a gunshot wound to the stomach, losing blood and in great pain. They
borrowed a
wagon in which to haul the wounded sheriff back to his parents' home in
Ivy
Log. It was a torturous trip, at best, over a road not much better than
a
forest trail, bumpy and rough. Reports are that Sheriff Hill went in
and out of
consciousness. He was nursed by his parents and others, but his life
ebbed out,
with the bullet still in his stomach. His date of death was May 17, 1867. Born
August 21, 1839,
this brave
young man's span of life on earth was twenty-seven years and eight
months.
On his tombstone at the Antioch Baptist Church
Cemetery
is this inscription, declaring his faith and his hope in the
resurrection from
the dead: "God my redeemer lives, and ever from the skies, Looks down
and
watches my dust till He shall bid it rise."
William Campbell fled from the
deputies
after he shot the sheriff and reportedly "went west." He was never
heard from again. The indictment against Campbell
in Towns
County stated that
he "feloniously,
willfully, and of his malice aforethought" shot Sheriff Charles Hill
with
"a certain pistol of the value of $10.00" and put "a leaden ball
into the belly of" Charles L. Hill, "near the navel." The mortal
wound was described as "the breadth of one inch and of the depth ten
inches." From this wound, he "languished and lingering and did
afterwards" die. (Quoted from "The Murder of Sheriff Charles
Hill" by Roxanne Powell in "A North Georgia Journal of History,
Volume II" compiled by Olin Jackson, Legacy Communications, 1991, pages
296-297).
Young, brave and daring, Sheriff
Charles
Leonedas Hill paid the highest price for public service: he gave his
life.
Later, two of his brothers would seek and win the office of high
sheriff of
their counties. Abel Hill was sheriff in adjoining county, Cherokee, in
North Carolina
from
1872-1876, and Napoleon Bonaparte Hill was sheriff in Union County, Georgia
in 1876.
c2007 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published June 21, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
Updated June 15, 2008
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