James Hillhouse (October 20, 1754 – December 29, 1832) was an American lawyer, real estate developer, and politician from New Haven, Connecticut. He represented Connecticut in both the U.S. House and Senate. Hillhouse is responsible for much of the current look of New Haven, and was for many years the treasurer of Yale University.
James was born in Montville, Connecticut, the son of William Hillhouse, and adopted by his childless uncle and aunt, James Abraham and Mary Lucas Hillhouse. He graduated from Yale in 1773 and was admitted to the bar in 1775. He became a captain in Governor's Foot Guards of the militia in the Revolutionary War.
Hillhouse was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives, 1780, United States Congressman from Connecticut at-large, 1791–96, and United States Senator from Connecticut, 1796–1810.
He was active in the drive to plant the elm trees that gave New Haven the nickname of the Elm City. Hillhouse Avenue and James Hillhouse High School in New Haven are named for him. He died in New Haven in 1832 and is buried at the Grove Street Cemetery there.
In 1803, he and several other New England politicians proposed secession of New England from the union due to growing influence of Jeffersonian democrats and the Louisiana Purchase which they felt would further diminish Northern influence. In 1814-15 he was a Connecticut delegate to the Hartford Convention.
He was a nephew of Matthew Griswold, and uncle of Thomas Hillhouse.
Famous quotes containing the word james:
“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.”
—William James (1842–1910)