H. M. (Howard Melancthon) Hamill

Howard Melancthon Hamill was an American clergyman, educator, and author from Lowndesboro, Alabama. Reliable library and author-directory records identify him as active in both public education and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. After studying at East Alabama Male College at Auburn, he went on to serve in school leadership positions in Illinois and Missouri before turning increasingly toward church and Sunday school work.

Hamill became known for writing and editing books aimed at teachers, Bible students, and church workers. Catalog and archive records connect him with titles such as The Sunday School Teacher, The Bible and Its Books, Sunday-School Teacher-Training, and the edited volume Manual of Southern Methodism. Contemporary descriptions of his books present him as a specialist in Sunday school instruction and teacher training.

Some sources disagree on his birth year, listing either 1847 or 1849, so that detail is not completely settled from the materials reviewed here. What is clear is that he died in 1915 and left behind a body of work tied to religious education, Methodist publishing, and early-20th-century Southern thought.