The Hill Family

Mary Mehegan Hill - ca. 1867

In 1864, James J. Hill met a waitress working at the Merchants Hotel in St. Paul, where he often took his meals. Mary Theresa Mehegan, born in 1846 in New York City, was the child of Irish immigrants who settled in the frontier town of St. Paul in 1850. Mary attended finishing school in Milwaukee before she married Hill in 1867.

Over the next 18 years they had 10 children:

• Mary
  (married before the family moved to Summit Avenue)
• James
• Louis
• Clara
• Katherine (died in infancy)
• Charlotte
• Ruth
• Rachel
• Gertrude
• Walter

Four of the daughters were married in the mansion, and five children later had homes on Summit Avenue. Louis Warren Hill succeeded his father as president of the Great Northern Railway, and lived with his family next door at 260 Summit Avenue.

Charlotte Hill-George Slade wedding, 1901

• Watch a clip from the video, "James J. Hill: Empire Builder"