Josiah Way Hill

Josiah Way Hill was the uncle of Bessie Marie Hill Davis — Chuck’s maternal great-great-uncle on the Hill side — and the family’s killed-in-action soldier of World War I.

He was born 29 September 1893 at Rinard’s Mills, Monroe County, Ohio, the third son of Josiah W. Hill (Sr.) and Janetta (Smith) Hill. His older brother Harvey Hendershot Hill (married 15 June 1904 to Clara Victoria Ullmann) was the father of Bessie Marie Hill (Chuck’s maternal great-grandmother through Dorothy Wildermuth).

The soldier’s portrait

A halftone portrait of Josiah survives in a Monroe County World War I honor roll — an oval-framed photograph of him in his Army uniform above a scroll banner reading “PVT. JOSIAH W. HILL — LOWER SALEM — K.A.”, the “K.A.” marking him killed in action. He had entered service at Woodsfield, Monroe County, on 4 October 1917, giving his home as the Lower Salem / Rinard’s Mills area of Monroe County, and served as a private. It is the only known image of him in this archive: a young man of about twenty-four, a little over a year before he died.

The Monroe County honor-roll portrait — “PVT. JOSIAH W. HILL · LOWER SALEM · K.A.” — the source of his page portrait. (Not to be confused with his father, Josiah W. Hill Sr., 1854–1918, who appears as an older man in a 1940s family photograph alongside Harvey, George Way Hill, and Charles Milton Beardmore.)

Killed in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive — 11 October 1918

Josiah Way Hill died at age twenty-five on 11 October 1918 in France, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive — the largest American military operation of World War I, fought from 26 September 1918 through the Armistice on 11 November 1918. The offensive committed 1.2 million American soldiers under General John J. Pershing to a forty-seven-day battle across the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest in northeastern France. American casualties were over 350,000, of whom roughly 26,000 were killed in action. Josiah Way Hill was one of them, three weeks short of the armistice that would close the war.

He is buried at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Meuse, France — the present-day site of the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, the largest American military cemetery in Europe, holding the graves of more than 14,000 American soldiers from the offensive.

A piece of the family’s military thread

The Hill-side WWI casualty sits alongside the Wildermuth-side WWII bomber service of his great-nephew-by-marriage Robert Earl, the Eesley-side Cabanatuan death of Lyle Eesley in 1942, and the Eesley-side Vietnam tour of Charlie Eesley in 1969-71. Four generations, four wars, four uniforms across both sides of the family. Josiah Way Hill is the earliest of the four to be killed.

The middle name — a separate Way connection

Josiah’s middle name “Way” signals a Way-family connection on the Hill side that runs separately from the primary Way connection in the family, which enters through the Davis side — specifically through Victoria Anna Way Davis (1874-1903), Chuck’s maternal great-great-grandmother, daughter of Edward E. Way and granddaughter of the English-immigrant Edward Taylor Way of Noble County. The Way newspaper clipping Chuck preserves in the family papers (“Way family among early settlers in Noble County,” Times Regional Editor Burns Harlan), with handwritten margin annotations by an earlier-generation family genealogist:

“Elizabeth, the oldest, was married twice. Her first husband was Lindley Yarnall.”

— documents that Davis-side Way line and the family of Edward Taylor Way (1812-1879). The Way family of Noble County the article describes is the source of the Way name on the Davis side, through Edward T. Way → Edward E. Way → Victoria Anna Way → Homer Edward Davis → Dorothy Marie Davis → Terrie Lee → Chuck.

The Hill-side appearance of the Way name in Josiah’s middle name is therefore most plausibly a second, parallel connection — possibly through Janetta (Smith) Hill’s family, or through an earlier maternal-line marriage on the Hill side that brought a Way name into the Hill household one generation before Josiah’s 1893 birth. The two southeastern Ohio counties — Noble (Way) and Monroe (Hill) — sit next to each other, and Way-Hill marriages between branches of the two families would not have been unusual in the late nineteenth century. The specific marriage that put “Way” into the Hill family on Josiah’s side is open research; the primary Way connection in the wider family is the Davis-side one through Victoria.

See also

• Bessie Marie Hill Davis — his niece, Chuck’s maternal great-grandmother
• Harvey Hendershot Hill — his older brother, Bessie’s father
• Lyle Eesley — the family’s WWII Cabanatuan death
• Charlie Eesley — the family’s Vietnam tour
• The Way family newspaper clipping — the early Way settlers of Noble County, with Chuck’s family-papers annotations

Sources: Eesley/Wildermuth GEDCOM tree (June 2026 trace) — FamilySearch tree ID for Josiah Way Hill confirms birth at Rinard’s Mills 29 Sep 1893 and death at Meuse-Argonne 11 Oct 1918, burial at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon. FamilySearch — Josiah Way Hill (KCXV-3YN): service entered at Woodsfield, Monroe County, 4 October 1917. Monroe County WWI honor-roll portrait (“Pvt. Josiah W. Hill — Lower Salem — K.A.”), family papers, transmitted by Chuck Eesley 2026. The Way-line connection is anchored in the family-papers clipping Chuck preserves with handwritten genealogical annotations.