Hillis family

Newell Dwight Hillis was born in Magnolia, IA on September 2, 1858. He graduated from Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, IL in 1884 and from McCormick Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago in 1887. In April of 1887, he married Annie Louise Patrick, and later that year he was ordained by the Presbytery of Peoria. After several pastorates in the Midwest, Hillis was called to the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn in 1899. Plymouth Church was then well known as the Church of clergymen Henry Ward Beecher and Lyman Abbot, whom Hillis succeeded.

In 1899, after less than a year at Plymouth Church, Hulls withdrew from the Presbyterian Church after writing a letter to the Chicago Presbytery denouncing certain aspects of the Presbyterian Creed. Later in his life he became a Congregationalist.

...