University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Yackety Yack Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

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JOHN SPRUNT HILL

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John Sprvnt HilL JOHN SPRUNT HILL was born near Faison, North Carolina, on March 17th, 1869. His parents, William D. Hill and Frances Diana Faison, were both descendants of families who moved to the eastern part of this State from Virginia in 1770. Here they acquired large property interests, and have ever been leaders in the community. Hill entered the University in September, 1885, at the age of six- teen. He soon was mai ' ked as a man of unusual powers as a student, and as a man of affairs. He joined here the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and was one of the founders of the Order of Gimghouls. He easily led his class in scholarship, graduating maxima cum laudew ' iXh. the Class of 1889. He delivered the Philosophical Oration at Com- mencement, and missed being Valedictorian by a small fraction of a point. Li the fall of 1891, Mr. Hill entered the Law School of the Uni- versity, where he remained a year, leaving here to enter the middle class of law at Columbia. Soon after his entrance, he won a scholar- ship in law. While at Columbia, Mr. Hill joined the legal fraternity, Phi Delta Phi. Li May, 1894, he was admitted to the New York bar, and in June of that year left Columbia with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Immediately after graduation, he became managing clerk of a prominent law firm in New York City. In January, 1895, he began the practice of law on his own account. He is now the senior member of the firm of Hill, Sturcke Andrews. At the outbreak of the Spanish War, in the spring of 1898, Mr. Hill promptly volunteered for service, and was chosen as one of the men who composed Troop A and represented the squadron in the field. He did yeoman service in the Porto Rican campaign. In the fall of 1900, Mr. Hill was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Congress from the Fourteenth District of New York. In this campaign, he conducted a most brilliant canvass in opposition to the policy of the administration. He was one of the few Democratic