1915-09-30-New York Tribune-Rev J W Hill Sued by Girl for 100000

REV. J. W. HILL SUED BY GIRL FOR $100,000

New York Tribune, 30 September 1915, page 1

Chicago Poetess Says Noted Author and Lecturer Promised to Marry Her.

HE'S 52 AND AVOWED FOE OF 'SOULMATES'

Clergyman, Close Friend of Taft, Swore He Was Single, She Avers——Blackmail Hinted.

The Rev. Dr. John Wesley Hill, author, religious and political lecturer, former pastor of the Metropolitan Temple and now president of the International Peace Forum, was yesterday made defendant in a suit for $100,000 by Miss Lucille Covington, of Chicago, once his employe and, before that, a school teacher in Chicago.

Only the summons in the suit was filed in the County Clerk's office here yesterday, and this legal paper does not disclose the nature of the action. However, this attitude of reticence was abandoned so far as the newspapers were concerned when Miss Covington's attorney, Nathaniel F. Schmidt, of 220 Broadway, was asked if he had anything to say.

"Yes," he replied. "My client is suing Dr. Hill for breach of promise. He met her in the summer of 1910 in Chicago, where she was manager of the Lyceum and Chautauqua branch of the Western Vaudeville Association. Dr. Hill fell in love with her. Truth to tell, she returned his love at the same time. It was literally a case of love at first sight.

"In Ju1y, 1910, Dr. Hill proposed, and Miss Covington accepted him. In the following December she came here to become manager of the booking office of the International Peace Forum, at 18East Forty-first Street. All this time she believed him a single man——he told her that he was unmarried. It was not until late in 1911 that she discovered that he not only had a wife, but that there were two children by a first wife.

Looks Like Marie Doro.

"I might add that she is a poetess and fiction writer."

"Where is the young woman now?" Schmidt was asked.

"She has gone back to Chicago," the lawyer responded.

Dr. Hill was served with the summons on Tuesday morning. He left here at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon for Detroit to fill a lecture engagement that had been arranged for several weeks ago. He is expected back here within four or five days.

The woman is described as being a brunette of an age that guessers pick s about thirty-five. She in of medium height. A person who has seen her often was struck by her facial resemblance to Miss Marie Doro, the actress. Other persons who have seen her said they could not strengthen this, as they had never looked on Miss Doro.

Bainbridge Colby, who lives at 49 East Sixty-sixth Street, is Dr. Hill's attorney, and has been for several years. Mr. Colby said last night that he knew very little about the case; that he heard of the summons only yesterday morning and at that time did not know what lay behind it.

"I regret that the young lady is out of town," he said, "and we shall be very much interested in her return. She has written several letters. I have two of them. In one of them she speaks of blackmail.

"There will be no compromise in this proceeding. I shall file notice of appearance——I have twenty days in which to do that. When I apprise the plaintiff's lawyer that I am Dr. Hill's legal representative he will be called on to serve his complaint."

Hill Foe of Soulmates.

At Dr. Hill's home, 131 West 118th Street, it was said yesterday that another member of the family had received a letter from Miss Covington embodying certain suggestions. It was said also that Miss Covington had not been in Dr. Hill's employ for three or four years, and that when she was her position was that of a clerk, and that her association with her employer was not any closer than customarily is indicated by the term employer and employe.

Dr. Hill is a noted foe of Mormonism. His utterances in Ogden, Utah, on that subject several years ago won him hearty enmity throughout the state. Quite as strongly, he sits down flatly and solidly on efforts to justify a married parson's acquisition of a soulmate.

"When a married man finds a woman whose mental vibrations apparently are attuned better than those of his wife," he said, in 1909. "that is the devil using telepathy for his own dark purposes. A man should not listen to such vibrations."

Dr. Hill was born in Kalida, Ohio, in 1863, making him fifty-two years old. He was married in 1888 to Miss Norah Holmes, of Findlay, Ohio. Their two children——one, Warren, a Deputy Assistant District Attorney in Mr. Perkin's office——are both living.

Mrs. Hill died in 1904. Two years later Dr. Hill was married to Mrs. Sadie Harrison Schmidt, a widow, who lived with Dr. Hill in the West 118th Street house.

Dr. Hill has been as prominent a figure in polities as in religion. He was chaplain of the Republican National Convention, in Chicago, in 1908, when Mr. Taft was nominated. Dr. Hill accompanied Mr. Taft on a campaign trip through the Northwest, making several speeches. They are strong friends. Dr. Hill played a prominent part in the Blaine and McKinley campaigns.