Ralph Hill

Who was Ralph Hill?

Ralph Nading Hill was a Vermont writer and preservationist.

Hill's books include The Winooski, Heartway of Vermont, which viewed Vermont through the lens of the river known to the Algonquians as "The Onion River" and Sidewheeler Saga, a book about the steamboat Ticonderoga, the last sidewheel steamer on Lake Champlain. Hill worked on the boat, which traveled between Vermont and New York across Lake Champlain, for three years.

Hill later became well known in Vermont for preserving the Ticonderoga, at first trying to keep the boat running as an excursion steamer, and then persuading Electra Havemeyer Webb to buy the ship for her Shelburne Museum. The ship was transported overland to the museum in 1955.