Hilles, Sarah Cooper Tatum

Sarah Cooper Tatum was born circa 1832, the daughter of Joseph Tatum (1806-1881) and Anne Cooper Tatum (1808-1834) of Woodbury, New Jersey. Sarah had one brother, John Cooper Tatum, who was a farmer and Director of the First National Bank in Woodbury, New Jersey. Sarah and John were educated at Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania from around 1846 to 1848, and John also attended Haverford College from 1850 to 1852. Anne Cooper Tatum died in 1834, when Sarah and John were small children. Joseph Tatum was remarried in 1845 to Hannah M. Whitall. Sarah Cooper Tatum married John Smith Hilles (1830-1876) on May 7, 1862. They had four children: Anne Tatum Hilles (1863-unidentified), William Samuel Hilles (1865-1928), Joseph Tatum Hilles (1867-1924) and Margaret Hill Hilles (1870-unidentified).

John Smith Hilles was born in 1830, the second son of Samuel Hilles (1788-1873) and Margaret Hill Smith Hilles (1786-1882), who were married in 1821. He attended Haverford College from 1844 to 1845 and afterwards operated brick kilns in Wilmington, Delaware. Later, he operated a coal-yard in Philadelphia and then went on to work for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, serving as General Freight Agent and Assistant Superintendent. Eventually, the Railroad gave him charge over their new steam vessel shipping service. Hilles’ work with Philadelphia and Reading Railroad attracted the attention of William P. Clyde and Company, a Philadelphia shipping firm, which hired him as manager and eventually made him a partner. John Smith Hilles was also involved with the Friends Association of Philadelphia and its Vicinity for the Relief of Colored Freedmen, making at least one trip into the south to visit and report back on the conditions of the freed black communities on Roanoke Island in Virginia and other places in the early 1860s.

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