John Wesley Hillman ~ Explorer and Forty-niner/gold prospector.
He is remembered for his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon while searching for gold on June 12, 1853.
He was a "Forty-niner," who at the tender age of sixteen headed west with his dad, both with visions of rich gold finds in the famous gold rush of 1849. They did pan the precious metal and returned home with the elusive nuggets, not with great wealth, but mainly with hair-raising tales as frontiersmen. Hillman also took an active hand in the subsequent development of parts of California and in 1853 his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon was merely incidental in the search for gold, and regarded as such. Old timers in the southern reaches of East Baton Rouge Parish remember John Wesley Hillman as a tall, slender white-bearded old gentleman who settled near Hope Villa on a farm. Some years after returning to New Orleans from the West he bought a tract of land in the Manchac area and built a home near the intersection of Tiger Bend and Hoo Shoo Too roads. For many years he was a well-known planter in the Manchac/Hope Villa area near Baton Rouge and it was there at his home he died in 1915, just shy of his 83rd birthday.
Besides panning for gold he had worked as a guide for other prospectors and also as a Pony Express rider on the long trek from St. Louis to San Francisco. When he was only 21 he suffered a leg injury inflicted by an Indian. That was in 1854 and for the remaining 61 years of his life the limb gave him trouble and it was necessary in later years for him to use a crutch and dress the wound daily. When he was wounded, the red man was attempting to steal a mule from Hillman's prospecting party. What the Indian really wanted was mule meat for food, Hillman later told Manchac area friends, pointing out that according to the queer culinary code of a Redskin, a mule came before a horse as far as food was concerned.
Hillman has gone down in history as the discoverer of Oregon's spectacular Crater Lake back in 1853 which was four years after he went west. At the time he was leading a group of prospectors in search of a so-called "lost gold mine." They never found the gold mine, but while riding his mule up a steep incline, Hillman came to the brink of the old crater. There he discovered Crater Lake. It was sixteen years before the lake was named. Hillman said they decided to call the lake "Deep Blue Lake." Later, the lake was named Crater Lake and a bronze plate giving credit to Hillman has been installed in Crater Lake National Park. The highest point of the jagged crater rim (Hillman Peak) was named for the gold seeker.
In the 1840's, word of gold finds in the West spread like fire. All over the nation able-bodied men sought passage to make their fortune and one of them was the senior John Hillman who had recently settled in New Orleans, having come from Albany, New York. The Hillmans were an Irish famiy, which traces its ancestry back to the 16th century.
Hillman and his father had been awaiting an opportunity to go west to hunt for gold when it was learned that a regiment of mounted rifles was going west from St. Joseph, Missouri, and the teamsters were being recruited in New Orleans. From information obtained from a brother, who was the port warden at New Orleans, the elder Hillman was appointed saddler and the son got the job of extra driver. It was an enormous undertaking, with 806 mule wagons.
In his reminiscences the Manchac old timer described his hazardous trip. He told of the outbreak of cholera, of desertions, of stampedes of wild buffalo and of discord between the officers and their men, and of attacks by Indians along the way.
After an arduous day's journey, the grizzled frontiersmen would spin yarns around the campfire, Hillman recalled, "Ours was not a ladies" tea party, for there were men there who were murderers, thieves, gamblers; men who have been hunted; men who would shoot to kill and ask questions afterward."
When the regiment reached Oregon City, Sept. 18, 1849, five months and three days had elapsed since the start. From Oregon City the trail led to San Francisco, the caravan arriving just before outbreak of the great fire which father and son experienced.
Mr. Hillman spent many of his best years in the new country of the West, eventually drifting down to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing it and drawing up at New Orleans, where he married Rosalie Frye in 1875, later going to Baton Rouge to live.
He is remembered for his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon while searching for gold on June 12, 1853.
He was a "Forty-niner," who at the tender age of sixteen headed west with his dad, both with visions of rich gold finds in the famous gold rush of 1849. They did pan the precious metal and returned home with the elusive nuggets, not with great wealth, but mainly with hair-raising tales as frontiersmen. Hillman also took an active hand in the subsequent development of parts of California and in 1853 his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon was merely incidental in the search for gold, and regarded as such. Old timers in the southern reaches of East Baton Rouge Parish remember John Wesley Hillman as a tall, slender white-bearded old gentleman who settled near Hope Villa on a farm. Some years after returning to New Orleans from the West he bought a tract of land in the Manchac area and built a home near the intersection of Tiger Bend and Hoo Shoo Too roads. For many years he was a well-known planter in the Manchac/Hope Villa area near Baton Rouge and it was there at his home he died in 1915, just shy of his 83rd birthday.
Besides panning for gold he had worked as a guide for other prospectors and also as a Pony Express rider on the long trek from St. Louis to San Francisco. When he was only 21 he suffered a leg injury inflicted by an Indian. That was in 1854 and for the remaining 61 years of his life the limb gave him trouble and it was necessary in later years for him to use a crutch and dress the wound daily. When he was wounded, the red man was attempting to steal a mule from Hillman's prospecting party. What the Indian really wanted was mule meat for food, Hillman later told Manchac area friends, pointing out that according to the queer culinary code of a Redskin, a mule came before a horse as far as food was concerned.
Hillman has gone down in history as the discoverer of Oregon's spectacular Crater Lake back in 1853 which was four years after he went west. At the time he was leading a group of prospectors in search of a so-called "lost gold mine." They never found the gold mine, but while riding his mule up a steep incline, Hillman came to the brink of the old crater. There he discovered Crater Lake. It was sixteen years before the lake was named. Hillman said they decided to call the lake "Deep Blue Lake." Later, the lake was named Crater Lake and a bronze plate giving credit to Hillman has been installed in Crater Lake National Park. The highest point of the jagged crater rim (Hillman Peak) was named for the gold seeker.
In the 1840's, word of gold finds in the West spread like fire. All over the nation able-bodied men sought passage to make their fortune and one of them was the senior John Hillman who had recently settled in New Orleans, having come from Albany, New York. The Hillmans were an Irish famiy, which traces its ancestry back to the 16th century.
Hillman and his father had been awaiting an opportunity to go west to hunt for gold when it was learned that a regiment of mounted rifles was going west from St. Joseph, Missouri, and the teamsters were being recruited in New Orleans. From information obtained from a brother, who was the port warden at New Orleans, the elder Hillman was appointed saddler and the son got the job of extra driver. It was an enormous undertaking, with 806 mule wagons.
In his reminiscences the Manchac old timer described his hazardous trip. He told of the outbreak of cholera, of desertions, of stampedes of wild buffalo and of discord between the officers and their men, and of attacks by Indians along the way.
After an arduous day's journey, the grizzled frontiersmen would spin yarns around the campfire, Hillman recalled, "Ours was not a ladies" tea party, for there were men there who were murderers, thieves, gamblers; men who have been hunted; men who would shoot to kill and ask questions afterward."
When the regiment reached Oregon City, Sept. 18, 1849, five months and three days had elapsed since the start. From Oregon City the trail led to San Francisco, the caravan arriving just before outbreak of the great fire which father and son experienced.
Mr. Hillman spent many of his best years in the new country of the West, eventually drifting down to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing it and drawing up at New Orleans, where he married Rosalie Frye in 1875, later going to Baton Rouge to live.
John Wesley Hillman ~ Explorer and Forty-niner/gold prospector.
He is remembered for his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon while searching for gold on June 12, 1853.
He was a "Forty-niner," who at the tender age of sixteen headed west with his dad, both with visions of rich gold finds in the famous gold rush of 1849. They did pan the precious metal and returned home with the elusive nuggets, not with great wealth, but mainly with hair-raising tales as frontiersmen. Hillman also took an active hand in the subsequent development of parts of California and in 1853 his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon was merely incidental in the search for gold, and regarded as such. Old timers in the southern reaches of East Baton Rouge Parish remember John Wesley Hillman as a tall, slender white-bearded old gentleman who settled near Hope Villa on a farm. Some years after returning to New Orleans from the West he bought a tract of land in the Manchac area and built a home near the intersection of Tiger Bend and Hoo Shoo Too roads. For many years he was a well-known planter in the Manchac/Hope Villa area near Baton Rouge and it was there at his home he died in 1915, just shy of his 83rd birthday.
Besides panning for gold he had worked as a guide for other prospectors and also as a Pony Express rider on the long trek from St. Louis to San Francisco. When he was only 21 he suffered a leg injury inflicted by an Indian. That was in 1854 and for the remaining 61 years of his life the limb gave him trouble and it was necessary in later years for him to use a crutch and dress the wound daily. When he was wounded, the red man was attempting to steal a mule from Hillman's prospecting party. What the Indian really wanted was mule meat for food, Hillman later told Manchac area friends, pointing out that according to the queer culinary code of a Redskin, a mule came before a horse as far as food was concerned.
Hillman has gone down in history as the discoverer of Oregon's spectacular Crater Lake back in 1853 which was four years after he went west. At the time he was leading a group of prospectors in search of a so-called "lost gold mine." They never found the gold mine, but while riding his mule up a steep incline, Hillman came to the brink of the old crater. There he discovered Crater Lake. It was sixteen years before the lake was named. Hillman said they decided to call the lake "Deep Blue Lake." Later, the lake was named Crater Lake and a bronze plate giving credit to Hillman has been installed in Crater Lake National Park. The highest point of the jagged crater rim (Hillman Peak) was named for the gold seeker.
In the 1840's, word of gold finds in the West spread like fire. All over the nation able-bodied men sought passage to make their fortune and one of them was the senior John Hillman who had recently settled in New Orleans, having come from Albany, New York. The Hillmans were an Irish famiy, which traces its ancestry back to the 16th century.
Hillman and his father had been awaiting an opportunity to go west to hunt for gold when it was learned that a regiment of mounted rifles was going west from St. Joseph, Missouri, and the teamsters were being recruited in New Orleans. From information obtained from a brother, who was the port warden at New Orleans, the elder Hillman was appointed saddler and the son got the job of extra driver. It was an enormous undertaking, with 806 mule wagons.
In his reminiscences the Manchac old timer described his hazardous trip. He told of the outbreak of cholera, of desertions, of stampedes of wild buffalo and of discord between the officers and their men, and of attacks by Indians along the way.
After an arduous day's journey, the grizzled frontiersmen would spin yarns around the campfire, Hillman recalled, "Ours was not a ladies" tea party, for there were men there who were murderers, thieves, gamblers; men who have been hunted; men who would shoot to kill and ask questions afterward."
When the regiment reached Oregon City, Sept. 18, 1849, five months and three days had elapsed since the start. From Oregon City the trail led to San Francisco, the caravan arriving just before outbreak of the great fire which father and son experienced.
Mr. Hillman spent many of his best years in the new country of the West, eventually drifting down to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing it and drawing up at New Orleans, where he married Rosalie Frye in 1875, later going to Baton Rouge to live.
He is remembered for his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon while searching for gold on June 12, 1853.
He was a "Forty-niner," who at the tender age of sixteen headed west with his dad, both with visions of rich gold finds in the famous gold rush of 1849. They did pan the precious metal and returned home with the elusive nuggets, not with great wealth, but mainly with hair-raising tales as frontiersmen. Hillman also took an active hand in the subsequent development of parts of California and in 1853 his discovery of Crater Lake in Oregon was merely incidental in the search for gold, and regarded as such. Old timers in the southern reaches of East Baton Rouge Parish remember John Wesley Hillman as a tall, slender white-bearded old gentleman who settled near Hope Villa on a farm. Some years after returning to New Orleans from the West he bought a tract of land in the Manchac area and built a home near the intersection of Tiger Bend and Hoo Shoo Too roads. For many years he was a well-known planter in the Manchac/Hope Villa area near Baton Rouge and it was there at his home he died in 1915, just shy of his 83rd birthday.
Besides panning for gold he had worked as a guide for other prospectors and also as a Pony Express rider on the long trek from St. Louis to San Francisco. When he was only 21 he suffered a leg injury inflicted by an Indian. That was in 1854 and for the remaining 61 years of his life the limb gave him trouble and it was necessary in later years for him to use a crutch and dress the wound daily. When he was wounded, the red man was attempting to steal a mule from Hillman's prospecting party. What the Indian really wanted was mule meat for food, Hillman later told Manchac area friends, pointing out that according to the queer culinary code of a Redskin, a mule came before a horse as far as food was concerned.
Hillman has gone down in history as the discoverer of Oregon's spectacular Crater Lake back in 1853 which was four years after he went west. At the time he was leading a group of prospectors in search of a so-called "lost gold mine." They never found the gold mine, but while riding his mule up a steep incline, Hillman came to the brink of the old crater. There he discovered Crater Lake. It was sixteen years before the lake was named. Hillman said they decided to call the lake "Deep Blue Lake." Later, the lake was named Crater Lake and a bronze plate giving credit to Hillman has been installed in Crater Lake National Park. The highest point of the jagged crater rim (Hillman Peak) was named for the gold seeker.
In the 1840's, word of gold finds in the West spread like fire. All over the nation able-bodied men sought passage to make their fortune and one of them was the senior John Hillman who had recently settled in New Orleans, having come from Albany, New York. The Hillmans were an Irish famiy, which traces its ancestry back to the 16th century.
Hillman and his father had been awaiting an opportunity to go west to hunt for gold when it was learned that a regiment of mounted rifles was going west from St. Joseph, Missouri, and the teamsters were being recruited in New Orleans. From information obtained from a brother, who was the port warden at New Orleans, the elder Hillman was appointed saddler and the son got the job of extra driver. It was an enormous undertaking, with 806 mule wagons.
In his reminiscences the Manchac old timer described his hazardous trip. He told of the outbreak of cholera, of desertions, of stampedes of wild buffalo and of discord between the officers and their men, and of attacks by Indians along the way.
After an arduous day's journey, the grizzled frontiersmen would spin yarns around the campfire, Hillman recalled, "Ours was not a ladies" tea party, for there were men there who were murderers, thieves, gamblers; men who have been hunted; men who would shoot to kill and ask questions afterward."
When the regiment reached Oregon City, Sept. 18, 1849, five months and three days had elapsed since the start. From Oregon City the trail led to San Francisco, the caravan arriving just before outbreak of the great fire which father and son experienced.
Mr. Hillman spent many of his best years in the new country of the West, eventually drifting down to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing it and drawing up at New Orleans, where he married Rosalie Frye in 1875, later going to Baton Rouge to live.
Inscription
"Life is ever Lord of death
An love can never lose its own"
Gravesite Details
Hillman markers are together near Quinn Drive hidden in the brush and enclosed by a fence.
Family Members
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