John Henry Hill (July 4, 1852 – October 13, 1936) was an American lawyer, educator, school administrator, and military officer.

[3][4][7] On April 11, 1879, Judge Charles J. Faulkner Jr. qualified Hill to practice law at the bar of the Supreme Judicial Court of Sagadahoc County, Maine.

[11] While in Jefferson County, Hill also served as an assistant instructor on the board of teachers for Storer College in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1881.

[12] Hill practiced law in Jefferson County until 1882, when he enlisted in the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army.

[13] Hill served in the 10th Cavalry Regiment for six years, during which time he participated in the campaign against Geronimo in the Apache Wars.

[3] Following his discharge from military service, Hill returned to Charles Town,[3] and became a schoolteacher in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

[14] African-American historian Carter G. Woodson wrote that Hill was the "most prominent teacher that Shepherdstown had" and that the community remembered him for the efficiency of his work.

[19][20] The institute had been founded in 1891 under the Morrill Act of 1890, to provide West Virginia's African Americans with education in agricultural and mechanical studies.

[2][25][26] In June 1894, at the regular meeting of the board, Hill was elected and duly installed as the second principal of the West Virginia Colored Institute.

[34][35] In February 1900, Hill announced his candidacy for a Kanawha County seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates.

[37] Hill resigned from his positions at the West Virginia Colored Institute in 1903 and spent the following year traveling across the Western United States and Mexico.

[6] Following the war, Hill worked as an assistant at the West Virginia Workmen's Department of Compensation in nearby Charleston, and he remained in this position until 1929.

[39][40][41] Hill wrote Princess Malah "to depict the relationships existing between the master and slave in the period of our history just prior to the Revolutionary War".

[6] In April 1936, Hill was a founding member of the West Virginia sustaining membership committee of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

[42][43] In May 1936, as president emeritus, Hill participated in West Virginia State's Founder's Day exercises on the 44th anniversary of the college's opening.

[47] Hill Hall formerly housed West Virginia State's Counseling and Tutoring Center, Upward Bound, and Special Services.

[47] Hill Hall currently houses the university's Business Administration, Economics, English, History, Modern Foreign Language, Political Science, and Sociology Departments.