author
A. J. (Alfred James) Hill
1833–1895
A trained civil engineer, Civil War veteran, and early Minnesota investigator of ancient earthworks, this writer left behind vivid local history and research that helped preserve knowledge of the Upper Midwest’s past. His work connects frontier memory, military experience, and some of the earliest archaeological surveying in the region.
2 Audiobooks
History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry
by A. J. (Alfred James) Hill
Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society for the Year 1867
by Charles Edwin Mayo, Henry M. (Henry Mower) Rice, A. J. (Alfred James) Hill, Gideon H. (Gideon Hollister) Pond
About the author
Born in London in 1833, Alfred James Hill came to America in 1854, first settling at Red Wing and then moving to St. Paul, where he spent the rest of his life. He was trained as a civil engineer, and that practical background shaped the careful, observant style of his historical and survey work.
During the Civil War, Hill enlisted in the Sixth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry in 1862 and later served much of the war in the Corps of Topographical Engineers at Washington. He is best known as the author of History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, a firsthand account published after his death, and for his contributions to research on Minnesota history and archaeology.
Hill also played an important part in early investigations of Native American mounds and earthworks in Minnesota and neighboring regions. Later scholars credited his field notes and surveys, along with those of Theodore H. Lewis, as major sources for The Aborigines of Minnesota, and Minnesota Historical Society materials also connect him to the movement that helped create Itasca State Park. He died in 1895.