Hillegas

Bureau of Standards in 1908, and held the posi-
tion until his death. Under him the chemistry
division increased greatly in the scope of its
work. From 1892 to 1910 he was professor of
general chemistry and physics in the National
College of Pharmacy (after 1906 a part of
George Washington University). He was active
in the American Chemical Society; he served on
its committee on coal analysis, and for years was
chairman of the supervisory committee on stand-
ard methods of analysis. He was president of
the society in 1906, and at one time or another
was assistant or associate editor of its three jour-
nals. He was a member and then fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science, a member of the American Society for
Testing Materials, the Geological Society of
Washington, the American Philosophical Soci-
ety, and the National Academy of Sciences; a
charter member of the Washington Academy of
Sciences, corresponding member of the Got-
tingen Gesellschaft, honorary member of the
Colorado Scientific Society. In 1916 he was
awarded the Chandler Gold Medal by Columbia
University.

Hillebrand was a man of wide interests out-
side his professional field. He enjoyed books of
biography and travel, and liked gardening, bird
study, piano playing, the game of skat He was
fond of baseball and was an enthusiastic fisher-
man. He married Martha Westcott of Perrys-
burg, Ohio, in 1881, and they had two sons.

[Autobiographical sketch written for eventual use in
the preparation of a biographical memoir for the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences; F. W. Clarke, "Biograph-
ical memoir of William Francis Hillebrand," with bib-
liography, Nat. Acad. Sci. Biog. Memoirs, vol. XII,
no. 2 (1928); letters selected by Hillebrand and
marked "of possible interest to my biographer" ; Who's
Who in America, 1924-25 ; sketches in Science, Mar. 6,
1925, and Jour. Am. Chem. Soc., Apr. 1925.]

C.E.W.

HILLEGAS, MICHAEL (Apr. 22, i;29-Sept.
29,1804), merchant, first treasurer of the United
States, was born in Philadelphia, the son of Mi-
chael and Margaret Hillegas. His father, an
emigrant from the Palatinate, was a naturalized
citizen of Pennsylvania, a prosperous merchant,
and a respected leader of the German population.
His son was given the best education afforded at
the time by the parochial schools and academies
of Philadelphia, and at an early age entered his
father's counting-room. When he was twenty-
one, upon his father's death, he became manager
of the business and one of the administrators of
his father's estate. Later he invested in sugar
refining and in the manufacture of iron and
amassed a considerable fortune. His first pub-
lic service was that rendered in 1762 as a com-

Hillegas
missioner to locate and erect Fort Mifflin, Pa.
He was a member of the provincial Assembly of
Pennsylvania, 1765-75, and during this time was
a member of the commission to audit and settle
the accounts of the general land office and other
public accounts. He was a member of the board
of commissioners to improve the navigation of
the Delaware River in 1771; a member of the
committee of observation for Philadelphia, 1774;
and on June 30,1775, was appointed treasurer of
the Pennsylvania committee of safety. A month
later, July 29, 1775, Hillegas and George Clymer
were made joint treasurers of the united colo-
nies, by action of the Continental Congress,
being styled "Continental Treasurers." Mean-
while, on May 30, 1776, he assumed the addi-
tional duties of treasurer of the Province of
Pennsylvania. When Clymer took his seat in
Congress, Hillegas was made sole Continental
Treasurer, Aug. 6, 1776, and on Sept. 6, 1777,
he was appointed treasurer of the United States
of America. He continued to serve until Sept
ii, 1789, after the Treasury Department had
been established by act of Congress, under the
federal Constitution. During the Revolution he
contributed a large part of his fortune, by gift
or loan, to the support of the army, and in 1781
he was one of the first subscribers to the Bank
of North America. By direction of the Penn-
sylvania General Assembly he compiled and pub-
lished in 1782 Volume I of Journals of the House
of Representatives of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, covering the period between Nov.
28, 1776, and Oct. 2, 1781. Apparently this task
stimulated his interest in the preservation of his-
torical material, for in a letter of Aug. 20, 1781,
to the governor of New Hampshire he suggested
"the propriety of each legislature in the Union
adopting measures similar to those taken by this
state for the above purpose" (Egle, post). Upon
the discovery of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania
about the first of the year 1792, Hillegas with
some others formed an association called the Le-
high Coal Mining Company which purchased
several thousand acres from the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania but probably never mined any
great quantity of coal. He was an alderman of
Philadelphia from 1793 until the year of his
death, and an associate justice of the mayor's
court. He was elected a member of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society, Apr. 8,1768. At one
time he was a vestryman of Christ Church.
"Hillegas ... is a great musician," wrote John
Adams, "talks perpetually of the forte and piano,
of Handel, etc. and songs and tunes. He plays
upon the fiddle" (The Works of John Adams,
vol. II, 1850, p. 429). On May 10,1753, he mar-