Stephen Hills (August 10, 1771 – October 17, 1844) was an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

notable for designing the original Pennsylvania State Capitol.

Early life

Hills was born in

Ashford, Kent Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Great Stour at the southern or scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London and northwest of Folkestone by road. In the 2011 census, it had a populati ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

on August 10, 1771. Hills married Margaret Ashby in 1794 and emigrated to the

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

soon afterwards. In 1801 he moved to

Lancaster, Pennsylvania Lancaster, ( ; pdc, Lengeschder) is a city in and the county seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. With a population at the 2020 census of 58,039, it ranks 11th in population amon ...

after receiving to design and build houses there. He was also a Duke player of the year.

Pennsylvania State Capitol

In 1810, he was employed by Bucher, Crouch and Dorsey, to remodel the

Dauphin County, Pennsylvania Dauphin County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Daffin Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 286,401. The county seat and the largest city is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital and ninth ...

Court House in preparation for a temporary capitol when the government moved from Lancaster to Harrisburg in 1812. In March 1816 William Strickland and James C. Lavelier submitted plans for a new larger capital but the costs at $300,000 were more than the state could afford. In 1819, Hill submitted the winning proposal for the new capitol building in Harrisburg which was completed in 1821. It was destroyed in 1897.

Other Pennsylvania projects

In 1817, Hills was hired to design the Lebanon County Courthouse. He used a rectangular building plan with a

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

architectural style which featured an impressive

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

with four large clock dials, bronze bell and a wooden statue of

Lady Justice Lady Justice ( la, Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia. Lady Justice originates from the ...

on the apex. The building was completed in 1818 and stood in the center of the city of

Lebanon, Pennsylvania Lebanon () is a city in and the county seat of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 26,814 at the 2020 census. Lebanon is located in the central part of the Lebanon Valley, east of Harrisburg and west of Reading. ...

's business district for 148 years until it was demolished in 1965.Jaye, Randy. Lebanon County Courthouse: Remembering Lebanon’s most iconic landmark. ''LebTown.com'', July 9, 2021.

Missouri projects

In 1837 he submitted the Pennsylvania capital design for the first

Missouri State Capitol The Missouri State Capitol is the home of the Missouri General Assembly and the executive branch of government of the U.S. state of Missouri. Located in Jefferson City at 201 West Capitol Avenue, it is the third capitol to be built in the cit ...

and Governor's Mansion after the government moved to

Jefferson City, Missouri Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the capital of Missouri, United States. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principa ...

. That building burned in 1840. In 1840 he designed

Academic Hall Academic Hall was the original main building of the University of Missouri. It was dedicated in 1843 and destroyed by fire in 1892. Academic Hall's six Ionic columns, today known as The Columns, stand on Francis Quadrangle as the most recogniza ...

at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

. The building burned in 1892 but the columns remain on the

Francis Quadrangle David R. Francis Quadrangle is the historical center of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Known as The Quad it is the oldest part of Red Campus and adjacent to Downtown Columbia at the south end of the Avenue of the Columns. At ...

and are a symbol of the school.

Later life

After finishing the buildings at the University of Missouri, Hills bought a farm, in

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

, next to his son Thomas' farm. He died on October 17, 1844.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hills, Stephen 1771 births 1844 deaths Architects from Pennsylvania Architects from Missouri People from Ashford, Kent People from Columbia, Illinois 19th-century American architects