Charlotte Hill

Charlotte Hill (1849–1930) was a homesteader born in Indiana who contributed to paleontology through finding several significant fossil within the Florissant Fossil Beds. She sold many fossils to other collectors and investigators to earn money on the side. Her most significant discovery was the Persephone butterfly near Florissant, Colorado. Charlotte's discoveries brought attention to Florissant as an important location for fossils, and her findings created an impetus for recognition of the fossil beds as a national monument within the United States of America. Many of her collected fossils now reside in the Harvard University museum and the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. The fossil rose Rosa hilliae was named after Charlotte Hill in 1883. Early life Hill was born on February 15, 1849, in Indiana. She migrated west from Indiana, pioneering into the then-new settlement of Colorado City in 1874. Charlotte married her husband, Adam Hill, at the age of thirteen. Both built their home in Florissant in 1874 and filed a homestead claim in 1880. The Homestead Act of 1862 is how most of the private land in the midwestern United States became the private land of homesteaders to encourage farming. This Act included private ownership by single women and formerly enslaved people. Together, the couple raised seven children, two of whom died at young ages. Children's names were Hiram (age 12), Walter (age 10), Margaret (age 5) and Mable (age 1). According to the 1880 census, Charlotte's occupation was listed in the same census as "Keeps House," while her husband Adam's occupation was listed as "collects specimens." Another child Minnie Bell died in December 1877 at 11 years old. Two other children had died previously. Furthermore, Charlotte's brother, John D. Coplen, helped form the Colorado Museum Association in 1883 to transport petrified stumps to city museums and fossils to be displayed later opened "Coplen's Petrified Forest." A resort for tourists to stay and collect fossils, hosting approximately 3,000 visitors in 1924. Charlotte Hill's museum in Colorado City was one of 14 businesses listed in the 1984 Colorado City business directory, displaying specimens from the Florissant fossil beds. Colorado City is where Hill's interest of fossils first began as the city is just beside the Florissant Fossil Beds. Work