Phipps Brevard Hill (1852-1940)

From the 1893-95 Arkansas legislative composite photograph.

  Phipps Brevard Hill was a Lawrence County, Arkansas farmer who served one term in the Arkansas House of Representatives in the early 1890s. Most often recorded under the initials "P.B.", Hill was born in Iredell County, North Carolina on July 8, 1852, the son of Robert and Sarah Adaline (Hall) Hill. P.B. Hill's early education was obtained as his family's home, and for two terms attended the University of Mississippi. He began the study of law in Somerville, Tennessee, and would enroll at Vanderbilt University in the late 1870s.

  After being admitted to the Tennessee bar Hill practiced law and in 1886 removed to Arkansas. He married in June of that year to Nancy Victoria Lester (1864-1946) and had two daughters, Annie and Mary Victoria (1902-1918). The couple were residents of Walnut Ridge in Lawrence County, where Hill later constructed a two-story mercantile store. In 1894 he was elected as Lawrence County's representative to the Arkansas General Assembly, and during the 1895-97 session sat on the committees on Agriculture and the Penitentiary.

  Little else is known of Hill's life after his term concluded in January 1897. Fifteen years after leaving office he served as Pulaski County's delegate to the 1912 Little Rock-Texarkana Conference, which discussed the feasibility of the construction of a 160 mile stretch of highway from Texarkana to Little Rock. In the following year Hill served on the Lawrence County Running Water Drainage Commission, and in this capacity awarded a contract to a Mississippi firm to dig a 17-mile drainage ditch at the cost of $35,000. 

  Phipps Brevard Hill died at age 87 on February 17, 1940. He was survived by his wife of fifty-three years, Victoria, and both were interred at the Hope Cemetery in Imboden, Arkansas.