Hugh Hill

Hugh Hill (1740–1829) was an Irish-born American sea captain based in Beverly, Massachusetts, best known for his successful privateering exploits during the American Revolutionary War. Through his maternal grandfather Hugh Jackson, he was a first cousin of President Andrew Jackson. Hill left home to join the English navy as a cabin boy. Without any formal schooling, Hill managed to acquire a rudimentary school education through the help of sailors. Upon leaving the naval service, Hill went to Marblehead, Massachusetts, where he married Hannah Goudy on 13 March 1766 at the age of 25. Not long afterward he moved to Beverly to the north where he found work as a mariner.

Privateer activities With a professed strong hatred of the British government, Hugh Hill was a strong proponent of the Patriot cause from the beginning. In 1775, he was named captain of the privateering vessel Pilgrim by the Cabot brothers of Beverly and sent to disrupt British activity in the Atlantic. In that same year he captured the British ship Industry, which he delivered to George Washington.

Over the span of the war, Hill went on to successfully capture a multitude of British merchant vessels with the Pilgrim and later the Cicero, which he was commissioned master of in 1781, on the account of the Cabots. While infamous within British circles, he was known to be humane to his prisoners.

Death Hugh Hill died a prominent citizen of Beverly at his Chipman Hill farm on 17 February 1829, at the age of 88. and now serves as the site of several businesses and institutions on Tozer and Sohier Roads and adjoins with the sites of Beverly High School and Beverly Hospital.