Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hillard, George Stillman

HILLARD, George Stillman, lawyer, b. in Machias, Me., 22 Sept., 1808; d. in Boston, Mass., 21 Jan., 1879. He was graduated at Harvard in 1828, and, after studying in the law-school and in the office of Charles P. Curtis, was admitted to the bar and acquired an extensive practice. He taught for a time in the Round Hill school in Northampton, Mass. Mr. Hillard served in the state senate in 1850, and in 1853 was a delegate to the State constitutional convention. He held the office of city solicitor from 1854 till 1856, and that of U. S. district attorney for Massachusetts from 1866 till 1870. As a legislator he won the warm commendation of Daniel Webster. In 1833 he edited with George Ripley a weekly Unitarian paper, entitled “The Christian Register.” Subsequently he became associated with Charles Sumner in the publication of “The Jurist.” In 1856 he bought an interest in the “Boston Courier,” of which he was associate editor until he retired at the beginning of the civil war. In 1847 Mr. Hillard delivered a course of twelve lectures before the Lowell institute. Trinity gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1857. His addresses include a fourth of July oration (Boston, 1835); “Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession,” delivered before the Mercantile library association (1850); an oration before the New York Pilgrim society (1851); and a eulogy on Daniel Webster (1852). He was the author of privately printed memoirs of James Brown and Jeremiah Mason, and a life of Capt. John Smith for Sparks's “American Biography,” and published “The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser,” with a critical introduction (5 vols., Boston, 1839); a translation of Guizot's “Essay on the Character and Influence of George Washington” (1840); a “Memorial of Daniel Webster” and “Six Months in Italy” (1853); a series of “Readers” and “Selections from the Works of Walter Savage Landor” (1856); “Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan” ( Philadelphia, 1864); “Political Duties of the Educated Classes,” a pamphlet (Boston, 1866); and “Life of George Ticknor,” with Mrs. Ticknor (Boston, 1873).