Henry Villard - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

He was born in Speyer, Palatinate, Kingdom of Bavaria. His parents moved to Zweibrücken in 1839, and in 1856 his father, Gustav Leonhard Hilgard (who died in 1867), became a justice of the Supreme Court of Bavaria, at Munich. He belonged to the Reformed Church. Henry's mother, Katharina Antonia Elisabeth (Lisette) Pfeiffer, was Catholic. While Henry had aristocratic tendencies, he shared the republican interests of much of the Hilgard clan. His granduncle Theodore Erasmus Hilgard had emigrated to the United States during a clan move of 1833-1835 to Belleville, Illinois; the granduncle had resigned a judgeship so his children could be raised as "freemen." Henry was also a distant relative of the physician and botanist George Engelmann who resided in St. Louis, Missouri.

Henry entered a Gymnasium (equivalent of a United States "high school") in Zweibrücken in 1848, which he had to leave because he sympathized with the revolutions of 1848 in Germany. He had broken up a class by refusing to mention the King of Bavaria in a prayer, justifying his omission by citing his loyalty to the provisional government. Another time, after watching a session of the Frankfurt Parliament, he came home in a Hecker hat with a red feather in it. Two of his uncles were strongly in sympathy with the revolution, but his father was a conservative, and disciplined him by sending the boy to continue his education at the French semi-military academy in Phalsbourg (1849–50). Originally his punishment was to be apprenticed, but his father compromised on the military school. Henry showed up a for classes a month early so he could be tutored in the French language beforehand by the novelist Alexandre Chatrian. He later attended the Gymnasium of Speyer in 1850-52, and the universities of Munich and Würzburg in 1852-53. In Munich he was a member of the student fraternity Corps Franconia. In 1853, having had a disagreement with his father, he emigrated—without his parents' knowledge—to the United States.