Archival Materials in Special Collections

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Mary Hilgard Tyndale (recipient of the letters)

A native of Zweibrücken in the Palatinate (in southwestern Germany), Mary Hilgard (Sept. 18, 1818-Nov. 5, 1859) emigrated to the United States in 1835 with Thomas Erasmus Hilgard (July 7, 1790-Feb. 14, 1793) and Margareta Pauli Hilgard (1800-1842), her parents, and siblings.

On May 12, 1839, Mary married Sharon Tyndale (Jan. 19, 1916-Apr. 29, 1871) in Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois. They returned to Philadelphia where Sharon Tyndale worked for his father in the family’s business.  Sometime between May 1845 and August 1864, the family moved to Peoria, Peoria County, IIllinois where Sharon Tyndale engaged in business.

In the early 1850s Sharon Tyndale studied to become and became an engineer.  He worked for the Sunbury and Erie Railroad in Pennsylvania and then returned to Illinois to work for various railroads in the state.  In 1857 he was elected St. Clair County Surveyor as a Republican, and was appointed Belleville postmaster in 1861 by President Abraham Lincoln.  He left that positon to serve as Illinois Secretary of State from 1864 until 1869.  Sharon Tyndale died on April 29, 1871, a victim of murder (by gunshot).

Theodore Erasmus Hilgard (1790-1873) was an attorney and scholar in Bavaria (in Germany) who resigned his position on the Bavarian Supreme Court and, due to the policies of Ludwig I, emigrated to the United States in 1835, arriving in New Orleans on Christmas Day. After briefly living in St. Louis, he bought a farm near Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois,  which prospered.  In the 1850 census, his real estate was valued at $11,000.00; by 1860, its worth had increased to $15,000.00.

Children of Theodore Hilgard:

Rosa S. Hilgard Tittmann (Apr. 16, 1822, Germany-Feb. 7, 1920) married Karl Eduard Tittmann (21 Nov. 1809-26 Sept. 1871) on April 16, 1841. They moved to St. Louis from Belleville before the 1860 census.

Charles Edward/Karl Eduard Tittmann (Dec. 1, 1810-Sept. 28, 1872)  was a native of Dresden (Germany), and had been a law student in Leipzig. During the 1830 Polish November Uprising, he took part in a failed assassination attempt in Frankfurt.  In 1835, he emigrated to the United States.  , He is listed as is a landless merchant in Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois in the census of 1850.. Edward Tittmann's wholesale business was the largest store in Belleville, Illinois until the Panic of 1857 caused him to relocate the family to St. Louis. In the 1860 census he is listed as a St. Louis resident, a “white lead factor” worth $800.00.  During the Civil War, Edward was a Brevet Major in the U. S. Volunteer troops.  By 1870, he worked as a secretary for a St. Louis company.  His obituary remembers him as an author of fiction published in the local German language newspaper and a patron of the less fortunate, especially those in the German community. Edward Tittmann died at the home of Julius Pitzman.

Clara Hilgard (Aug. 26, 1823-Nov. 9, 1884) married Karl Christian Tittmann (23 Sept. 1807-23 Feb. 1851) on October 18, 1842 .  After her husband's death, Clara and her four children returned to Germany.

Julius Erasmus Hilgard (Jan. 7, 1825-May 8, 1891) came to the United States with his parents in 1835.  He moved to Philadelphia in 1843 to study engineering.  His first job after graduating was doing surveys that laid the groundwork for the Bear Mountain Railroad.  He made maps for the Union Army during the Civil War.  In 1863, the American Philosophical Society elected him to membership.  His work in the Office of Weights and Measures brought him to the attention of his European colleagues who offered him the directorship of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which he declined.  Starting in 1872, he was a member of the International Metric Commission (in 1875 group got 17 nations to accept the Convention du Mètre, which eventually led to international adoption of the metric system).  In 1875, he retired as the director of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. He lived in Washington, D.C. until his death.

The sixth of his parents eight children, Dr. Theodore Charles Hilgard (Feb. 28, 1828-Mar. 5, 1875) received an education at home from his older siblings due to the lack of adequate educational facilities in the area.  His father taught them German and other languages and a second cousin, Dr. George Engelmann encouraged and assisted in developing his interest in botany.  Entering the University of Heidelberg to study medicine in 1847, he immediately began collecting samples of local flora—a collection which was noted for its completeness.  The 1848 revolutions interrupted his studies, so3 Theodore and his brother Eugene went to Zürich and in 1851 to Vienna. He helped his widowed sister Clara to relocate from Spain, after which he studied in Würzburg where he became a doctor of medicine, surgery, and obstetrics in June1852.  After ophthalmological studies in Berlin, he returned to the United States in the summer of 1853 and established a medical practice in Philadelphia.  A friend and fellow botanist named Elias Durand ask him to take part in the 1853 Williamson Pacific Railroad expedition, which he did.  He married Georgina Koch (daughter of Albert C. Koch) in 1865. He retired in 1873 and died in New York City on March 5, 1875. Georgina Koch Hilgard died in Nebraska in 1927.  

Source:  A Biographical History of Botany at St. Louis, Missouri  by Perley Spauding.  (Reprinted from Popular Science Monthly, Dec 1908-Mar. 1909 issues, pp. 130-133. Google Books copy.

Eugene Woldemar Hilgard (Jan. 5, 1833-Jan. 8, 1916) was noted as an expert in the study of soil resources (pedology) and was a professor at the University of California.

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