Dr. Jacob Hittell
Dr. Jacob Hittell, born in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in 1797, moved to Butler County in 1839, and after spending three years in Trenton and Rossville, bought a home directly in front of the courthouse on High Street, devoting himself to the practice of his profession. He was of German descent, his father having come from Europe in the early part of the eighteenth century. When he was a boy the common speech in Lehigh was German, and he knew no English when he started out, at fourteen to earn his living. At sixteen he was a clerk in a grocery store, saving every cent not necessary for food, clothing, lodging, and education. He had every thing to learn, and he had already determined that he would be a physician. After eight years of unaided effort, he obtained his diploma, with the signatures of Rush, Physik, Wistra, and the other great professors of the leading medical college in the United States at that time. He then had eight more years of struggle before he had a comfortable position, pecuniarily. His settlement in Hamilton proved fortunate for him. He was industrious, economical, and sharp-witted. He bought lots, which rapidly rose in value. There were many Germans and Pennsylvania Germans in the county, who gave him most of their medical practice, and his income from that source arose in some years, it is said, to $5,000 – a large amount forty years ago. Nearly every Fall he took a journey through Northern Ohio and Indiana, to buy wild land, which was then rising rapidly in value. These purchases turned out well in almost every instance; and as early as 1840 Dr. Hittell was considered one of the richest men of Butler County. He was a very close man in money matters; but in at least one respect no man in Hamilton was more generous – that was, in educating his children, of whom he had five. One of these graduated at a young ladies’ seminary in Philadelphia, one in Holyoke, one in Oxford, and one in Yale; the other would not graduate anywhere because he disliked books. About 1865, when nearly seventy years of age, Dr. Hittell abandoned his practice and moved back to his old home in Pennsylvania, where he died in 1878. He laid off an addition to Hamilton in the southern part of the town, near the eastern bank of the river. He was a good surgeon, and a jovial associate among those whose company he enjoyed.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.