Baltimore City MD Archives Biographies.....Charles SIEGWART, 1863-1951 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Kathleen M. Brown kbrown@mmri.org ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/md/mdfiles.htm ************************************************ Biography: Charles Siegwart, 1863: Baltimore City, Md. Charles Siegwart was born in Ems, Switzerland in 1863. Ems (now Ems-Domat) is a village in northern Switzerland about 50 km southeast of Luzerne on the Little Emme River. He was the son and grandson of Swiss glassmakers. The area around Ems was a rich source of wood and minerals for glassmaking. His father, Andrew Siegwart, brought the family to the United States in 1883 and died four years later. Charles had sisters, Agnus and Crescentia, and brothers, Karl and Arnold. The family had a pass dated 9/19/1883 from the German government to leave Germany at Langendreer. The pass states that they were on foot. In Baltimore his brothers were well known German Lieder singers. Karl was a tenor and Arnold sang bass. When Charles came to Baltimore he was 21 years old and had already learned his family's glassmaking trade in the glass factories of Austria and Germany. In Europe the Siegwart family belonged to a community of glassmakers that traveled through Switzerland and Germany. They were a close-knit community and usually married within their own group to keep their methods and glass recipes secret. They made and blew glass in "glass huts" located close to sources of raw materials. There were a numbers of glassmakers by the name of Siegwart in the village of Fluhli, Switzerland located in the Entlebuch valley in the Luzerne caton. The Siegwart Co. in Fluhli produced a range of glassware. In 1784 Xaver Fischer and Andreas Siegwart purchased a glass hut in Fluhli (Horat, 1986). After coming to Baltimore, Charles Siegwart continued as a glassmaker for over 25 years. He retired in about 1908 at age 50 when the process was becoming mechanized. He said that "machines can be operated by almost anyone but it takes an artist to blow glass" (Sunpapers, 1953). Charles married Caroline (Carrie) Lohr (b. Baltimore 7/17/1869) on 8/27/1893 in Baltimore. She was the daughter of Henry Lohr, a well-known contractor in the city, and Margaret Spath (death cert. Balto. City 11/27/1958). Other members of the family in Irvington were Caroline's brother, Martin Lohr, and his wife, Hannah, proprietors of Lohr and Fritzi Florists on Old Frederick Rd.; and her two sisters, Maria Anna Lohr Buck and Katerina Lohr Engelhaupt. Maria Buck, widow of William Buck (d. 2/22/1892 Baltimore), ran a seafood restaurant near the harbor and was well known among sailors for her padded oysters. Katerina Engelhaupt was the widow of Wilhelm Henrich Engelhaupt whose father, Philip, had come to Baltimore in 1835 from Germany and fought for the Union in the Civil War (GAR Post 44). They had three children: Mary Ann Engelhaupt, Willian Henry Engelhaupt, and Edith Marie Wise (the granddaughter of her husband's sister, Emma Engelhaupt Elgert). German was the first language of older family members. Early baptismal and marriage records are in German and bear the name of St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church (St. Johannes). In later years, the family attended the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer at 4211 Vermont Ave. in Irvington. Two streets, Siegwart Lane off of Old Frederick Rd. and Lohrs Lane off of Caton Ave., in Irvington are named for these families. In the 1910 U.S. Census Charles Siegwart and family were living in Irvington. His occupation was listed as "florist". They had one daughter, Katherine M., born 5/27/1894 in Baltimore City. Around 1910 Charles Seigwart started experimenting with growing orchids in his greenhouses at 25 Siegwart La. He purchased orchid plants from collectors who took them from their native habitats in the Caribbean, S. America, and SE Asia. In particular, he purchased one plant of Cattleya Triannae from Columbia which had 107 blooms. In 1918 the Federal Horitcultural Board banned the importation of orchid plants because of the insects and diseases that came with them. Charles Siegwart produced more plants by dividing up older specimens and by 1926 all of his greenhouses were devoted to orchid culture and he was working in close cooperation with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture on the greenhouse cultivation and hybridization of orchids (Tricentenary History, 1926). In 1926 the Charles Siegwart Co. was the second largest wholesale producer of orchid blooms in the Eastern U.S. with about 20% of sales in Baltimore and 80% outside of Baltimore. In about 1927 the Charles Siegwart family moved out of Baltimore City to Jessups in Anne Arundel Co. Newly constructed buildings in Irvington has started to shade his greenhouses and Jessups was closer to his supply of peat. At 64 he used all of his savings to buy a 15-acre property at P.O. Box 157 Jessups Rd. in front of the House of Correction and to construct 5 large greenhouses. The property orginally contained an old log cabin that was incorporated into the kitchen of a larger house. On June 6, 1936 Charles Siegwart, along with two other leading farmers in Md., received an Honorary Certificate in Agriculture for distinguished achievements. He also won many awards and certificates at orchid shows in the Baltimore-Washington area. He died in 1951 at the age of 87. Around 1933 Katherine Siegwart, who was her father's partner in the business, married John Walter Slotter (b.Phila.Co.Pa 10/28/1890) of Chadd's Ford Pa. He was a seedling orchid grower and worked for Mrs. William H. House (Mary A.) in Chadd's Ford. The Charles Siegwart Co. was renamed Siegwart and Slotter and carried on into the 1960's at Jessups. The Slotters hybridized many new orchids and won numerous awards. They were judges for the American Orchid Society and founding members of the Maryland Orchid Society. John Slotter died in 1966 and Katherine Siegwart Slotter died in 1978. Sources of Information: May Irene Copinger, Orchid Blooms Are Grown in Baltimore: Charles Siegwart Became Interested in Growing the Plants When U.S. Placed Embargo on the Flowers, Baltimore Sun Sunday Morning January 31, 1926. Orchids Are Lazy, The Sunday Star, Washington D.C., Feb. 9, 1947. Orchids in the Moonlight: When John Slotter and His Wife See Them That Way It's Because Something's Wrong, Baltimore Sunday Sun, The Sunday Sun Magazine, Jan. 11, 1953. Andrews, Matthew P., Tercentenary History of Maryland, Vol. 3, Baltimore: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1925, p. 886-7. Horat, Heinz, Fluhli-Glas (in German), Bern and Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1986. Sander, H.F.C., Sander's Orchid Guide, Revised 1927 Ed., 1927. Sander, F.K, Sander's Complete List of Orchid Hybrids, St. Albans: Royal Orchid Nurseries, 1947. Sander, F.W., Sander's List of Orchid Hybrids Addendum 1949, 1950, 1951. London: Waterlow and Sons Ltd., 1952.