Hills & Bowers

American, active 1870s

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James Harvey Hills was a longtime engineer and engraver in Burlington, Vermont. It was said he had apprenticed with Eli Whitney, cotton gin-inventor and firearms manufacturer. Sereno Alonzo Bowers was a photographer born about 1844 in either Spain or New York. Hills & Bowers were in operation in Burlington, Vermont by 1872, when they offered views of the Chicago fire. They also travelled to smaller towns for weeks at a time making commissions on school portraits. In May, 1876 in Middlebury there was some public grumbling about the quality of work on a school album; Hills & Bowers had secured the contract by offering a price half that of local studios. But the firm flourished in Burlington, and when they moved to larger rooms in early 1877, they offered a catalog of 4,000 views. In advertisements they identified themselves as proprietors of the Vermont Gallery of Art. In January, 1878, in a suit brought against them by their former downstairs neighbors, Ripley & Holt, a judge reversed an earlier opinion and ruled for Hills & Bowers. The nature of that suit was not reported. The studio operated into 1879, though few advertisements were found. In January, 1880 there was no mention made of Hills & Bowers in reports that Bowers was accused of stealing money from a charity. In September, 1881 Bowers left for South America; when next found in Concord, New Hampshire, he was listed in the directory as "Living War Pictures."