Nathaniel Peter Hill (February 18, 1832 – May 22, 1900) was a professor at Brown University, a mining executive and engineer, and a politician, including serving in the United States Senate.

His scientific eligibility led him to be invited by cotton manufacturer Colonel William Reynolds to search for mining areas in the West.

He returned home to Providence after having accomplished little, where he officially resigned from his teaching position and vowed to devote the rest of his life to the search for gold.

Upon his return to the West, he bought several gold mines, but soon ran into financial difficulties because the smelting techniques at the time were resulting in low yields.

A stamp mill consisted of heavy iron blocks attached to wooden or steel rods that rose and fell in accordance with a horizontal beam.

Accordingly, he spent a portion of 1865 and 1866 in Swansea, Wales and Freiberg, Saxony studying metallurgy, and returned to the United States with a perfected method of smelting.

While in Blackhawk, he had the opportunity to work with James E. Lyon, an entrepreneur who he had met on his first trip to Colorado, and who had erected the first real smelter there.

He capitalized on the experience and with his professional training as a chemist and the knowledge gained in Europe, founded the Boston & Colorado Smelting Company, which encompassed numerous ventures aside from mining.

He ran on a platform of Republican ideals and free silver whose interests lay in the establishment of a monopolistic society and the implementation of a federal telegraph system.