Ralph Nading Hill

{{short description|American historian}}

File:Ralph Nading Hill.png

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2014}}

Ralph Nading Hill (September 19, 1917 – December 10, 1987) was a Vermont writer and preservationist.{{cite web | url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0DE103CF931A25751C1A961948260 | title=Ralph Nading Hill, 70; Chronicler of Vermont (obituary) | accessdate=January 30, 2011 | date=December 12, 1987 | work=New York Times}}

Hill's books include The Winooski, Heartway of Vermont (1949),{{cite book | title=Winooski, Heartway of Vermont | author=Hill, Ralph Nading | year=1949 | publisher=Rinehart | location=New York | pages=304 | isbn=978-0-87797-159-7}} which viewed Vermont through the lens of the river known to the Algonquians as "The Onion River" and Sidewheeler Saga, a book about the steamboat Ticonderoga, the last sidewheel steamer on Lake Champlain. Hill worked on the boat, which traveled between Vermont and New York across Lake Champlain, for three years.{{cite web | url=http://cdi.uvm.edu/findingaids/collection/hillr.ead.xml | title=Inventory of the Ralph Nading Hill Collection | accessdate=January 30, 2011 | author=Special Collections, University of Vermont Library}}

Hill later became well known in Vermont for preserving the Ticonderoga, at first trying to keep the boat running as an excursion steamer, and then persuading Electra Havemeyer Webb to buy the ship for her Shelburne Museum {{Citation needed|date=January 2011}}. The ship was transported overland to the museum in 1955.{{cite web | url=http://www.vermonter.com/shelburne-museum-3.asp | title=Shelburne Museum: SS Ticonderoga | accessdate=January 30, 2011}}