George Milton Hammell (1852-1916), was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 29, 1852. Son of landscape, portrait painter Abram Hammell he attended Woodward High School and the Ohio Mechanics' Institute and first worked in his father's studio. He was ordained a Methodist clergyman and was a teacher at Nelson Business College in Cincinnati teaching advanced and special courses and at University of Harriman, Tennessee, where he held the chair of Economics. He is best known as a Methodist Episcopal minister, teacher and social reformer.

George was an ardent Temperance man and was the Prohibition Candidate for Ohio governor in 1899. He is known for The Passing of the Saloon: An Authentic and Official Presentation of the Anti-Liquor Crusade in American which he edited. He was a contributor to many papers and magazines. For seven years he was the literary critic of the "Western Christian Advocate".

His liberal socialist thinking, however, eventually lead him to sever his relations with Methodism. He then devoted himself to painting and literature. An example of his poetry is in The Mary L. Cook Public Library. He wrote "In Days of Yore", which is a description of his uncle Phillip Hawke's farm near Waynesville. He and his wife Kathryn S. (1855-1942) traveled through out Europe where he studied in art schools. He died in Fort Scott, Kansas, February 28, 1916. He was teaching there in the "People's College", a working class institution. Ten months later, 92 of his paintings were displayed for the first time at the Cincinnati Art Museum. George and Kathryn are buried in Miami Cemetery in Corwin, Ohio. 

Source: The Hammells of Waynesville and Cincinatti.