Rees Hill

Rees Hill was a U.S. army colonel in the War of 1812, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from Greene County, speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and later a Pennsylvania State Senator.

Military service
As a colonel in the U.S. army during the War of 1812, he was stationed at Erie, Pennsylvania. On July 30, 1813, his detachment received orders to join the northwestern army. He was commended by then-general (and future president) William Henry Harrison in a letter to President James Madison.

Rees Hill (along with Thomas Sargeant of Harrisburg, Cromwell Pearce of Chester County, and Samuel McKean of Bradford County) was appointed as an aide de camp to the commander in chief of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

After Military Service
On March 3, 1819, Congress and President James Monroe approved an act to reimburse Hill for money he had spent for expenses of his troops during the War of 1812.

Political career
Hill was a member of the Democratic Republican party.

Hill was Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in two non-consecutive years (1816 and 1819). His first election as speaker took place on December 5, 1815. He was elected as speaker a second time on December 10, 1816. On December 1, 1818, he again won election as speaker with 74 votes (other votes were: John Purdon – 9, Samuel Bond – 1, Phineas Jenks – 1, and William N. Irvine – 1). On December 7, 1819 (for the session beginning in December, 1819 and lasting through most of 1820), he came in third in a vote for speaker with 14 of the 93 votes cast. (The speaker elected was Joseph Lawrence with 56 votes. Other votes were: Phineas Jenks – 21, Wilson Smith – 1, and William Lehman – 1).

He served as chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means in the Pennsylvania House in 1820 and was elected a Pennsylvania State Senator in November, 1820. Service in the Pennsylvania State Senate for the 20th district, began on December 6, 1820. He was elected as a Pennsylvania State Senator again two years later.