Johann Christoph
Wilmerding
* ?
+ ? 		Christina Elisabeth
to der Horst
* 26.12.1741 Braunschweig
* 25.01.1821 Braunschweig

Carl August
Wilmerding

Kaufmann

* 25.02.1771 Braunschweig
+ 12.05.1805 Braunschweig

Kinder mit Johanna Juliana Magdalena von der Heyden (oo 11.1791) :
John Christopher
Wilmerding
* ?
+ ? Flensburg
Kaufmann
oo Catherine Maria Christiansen
ein früh gestorbener Sohn
Catherine Augusta
Wilmerding
* ?
+ ?
oo Friedrich Bernhard Carl Becker (Kaufmann, übernimmt die Firma des Schwiegervaters)

 		Henrietta
Wilmerding
* ?
+ ?
Julia
Wilmerding
* ?
+ ?
oo Henneberg, Hereditary Grand Chamberlain to the Duke of Brunswick
Kinder:
- Minna Henneberg
- Rudolph Frederick Henneberg (* 1825 + 1876 bei Braunschweig), Maler 		?

 		?

Quellen:
- Manuskript: Stam-Buch der to der Horstischen Familie in Braunschweig und Hamburg.
- A. Munsell Bradhurst: "My forefathers, their history from records & traditions": CHAPTER VII
THE WILMERDINGS OF FLENSBURG
The youngest branch of the Wilmerdings was that from which Rudolph Henneberg, the famous painter, was derived. Charles Augustus Wilmerding, youngest son of John Christopher Wilmerding by Christine Elizabeth Tho der Horst, was born in Brunswick 25th February, 1771. He was the younger brother of Christian William Wilmerding, who went to America, and who, having married Catherine von Falkenhahn, founded the family of Wilmerding in New York. In 1790 Charles Augustus was Godfather (by proxy) to his niece, Augusta Catherine,' born in New York, as appears from the entry in his brother's Bible. He became a merchant in Brunswick, and suc- ceeded his father in the business which had been founded in 1698 by his grandfather, William Wilmerding.
Charles Augustus married Johanna Juliana Magdalena von der Heide, and died in Brunswick, 12th May, 1805, having had three daughters and a son, John Christopher Wilmerding, of Flensburg, a prosperous merchant, who married Catherine Maria Christiansen of Flensburg, by whom he had two daughters, and on his death this branch of the family is supposed to have terminated in the male line.^ He does not appear to have succeeded his father, Charles Augustus, in the old Wilmerding firm at Brunswick, for the latter was followed in the business house by Frederick Bernhard Charles Becker.
Of the three sisters of John Christopher Wilmerding, of Flens- burg — daughters of Charles Augustus— the eldest, named Catherine Augusta, married Frederick Bernhard Charles Becker, under whose name the business was henceforward carried on, and it was thus
' She died in childhood.
^ John Christopher Wilmerding, of Flensburg, inherited a gold ring engraved with the Wilmerding Arms from his grandmother, Christine Elizabeth (Tho der Horst). He had a son, who is supposed to have died iu childhood.
300 THE WILMERDING FAMILY
called the firm of F, B, C. Becker, when, on 22nd August, 1898, it celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of its foundation by Mrs. Becker's ancestor, William Wilmerding.
The two younger sisters of Mrs. Becker were named Henrietta and Julia. The latter — known as the "Lily of Brunswick" on account of her beauty — married Herr Henneberg, Hereditary Grand Chamberlain to the Duke of Brunswick. This gentleman, in his later years, had many interesting reminiscences not only of past genera- tions of his wife's family, the Wilmerdings, but also of many historical personages and incidents with which he had been brought in contact. As aide-de-camp he had been in attendance on his Prince at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, and his recollections of the events of that period were the delight of his hearers in later years. By Julia Wilmerding he had a daughter, Minna, and a son, Rudolph Frederick Henneberg, the well- known painter, both of whom died unmarried at the old Wilmerding country seat, near Brunswick, which they had purchased.
Rudolph Henneberg was born in Brunswick in 1825, and was a Member of the Berlin Academy, etc. One of his most famous paint- ings — " The Pursuit of Fortune " — was bought by the German Govern- ment, and now hangs in the National Gallery, in Berlin.' In this picture he painted [unknown to them) the portraits of two of his cousins, and depicted himself as the reckless rider who, urged on by the Devil at his elbow, gallops ruthlessly over the prostrate form of his lady love, in the pursuit of Fortune, who lures him on with her smile and glittering gold.
Many of Henneberg's sketches and studies are also preserved in the National Gallery in Berlin.
Another of his pictures, entitled " The Wild Huntsman," ^ is illustrative of a ballad by Burger, founded on an old German legend, according to which the Spirit of War, in the form of a huntsman rides furiously through the land on the outbreak of war.
After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Henneberg painted a picture, of less note than some of his other works, in which he displayed the sentiments of most Germans at that time. This picture
' '' Die Jagd nach dem Gliick." - ^^ Der Wilde Jaeger."
THE WILMERDINGS OF FLENSBURG 301
represents a Prussian cavalry soldier turning in his saddle with a look of contemptuous amusement, as he watches three Frenchmen, evi- dently the worse for their potations, who, with their arms linked, are walking down a village street and singing vain-gloriously.
Henneberg died at his home — the Wilmerding country house, near Brunswick — in the fifty-first year of his age, in 1876, and his sister, Minna, survived him some years, and also died there unmarried. "


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