Bio- Pen Pictures
SURNAMS:  WIELAND, BARTHOLDT

            Alexander Hildebrand, son of Gustav and Bernhardine Hildebrand, was born in Berlin, Germany, May 22, 1827.  His father died in 1844, and he lived at home with his mother two years longer.  He attended the primary school and afterward the gymnasium.  When about sixteen years old he began to learn the carpenter’s trade, working at it in summer and in the winter months attending architectural and drawing school for four or five years.  He followed his trade until 1849, when, according to the custom of the country, he entered the army, where he remained a year.  In 1850 he sailed for San Francisco, but after being out at sea twenty-four days the vessel was wrecked on an African island.  He was on the island six weeks, when he obtained an opportunity to leave on a small American bark bound for Rio [de] Janeiro.  He remained in Rio [de] Janeiro three or four weeks, the yellow fever being there at the time.  He then secured a passage on the Sea Bird, a steamer bound for San Francisco.  At Valparaiso he left the boat and remained there three or four months, working in the office of an architect who was building a custom house.  Hearing of the big fire in San Francisco in May, 1851, he went there, where he remained in business till 1881 (with the exception of a few months spent in the mines), when he removed to Los Gatos, where he had bought a place the December previous.  The place contained seventy-one and one-fourth acres, and he at once set out an orchard and vineyard of twenty-six acres.  He has since sold the most of it, and now has but six acres left.  In 1886 he turned his attention to drying fruit.

            Mr. Hildebrand was married, in 1866, to Marie Wieland, a native of Germany, who died in January, 1879, leaving a family of four children, of whom one daughter and two sons are living.  Mr. Hildebrand was married again in December, 1879, to Emilie Bartholdt, a native of Germany, and by her has a son.

 

Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 304
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy

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