Gail-Hinrichs family photograph collection

The Gail and Hinrichs families had homes on the same block in Baltimore's Bolton Hill neighborhood circa 1890-1910. The G.W. Gail mansion was on Eutaw Place and the Hinrichs' home on Linden Avenue, in the block between Ducatel Street on the south and Whitelock Street on the north. Between the two houses and occupying the rest of the block were gardens and a playground. The Hinrichs family moved here from John Street in 1887 or 1888. Their house had been moved down the hill circa 1880 when the Gail house was built; it had been the Felgner family farm house before that.

Ella and John E. (born 1856) Hinrichs were the heads of the Hinrichs family in 1900. Their children were W. Christopher (1884-1945), Marie A. MacGill (1887-after 1960), John E. (1890-1940), Ernest Henry (1891-1970), and Paul C. (1898-ca. 1968). Ernest H. Hinrichs attended Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Dental School, becoming a dentist who practiced for many years at 2318 North Charles Street. Paul C. Hinrichs graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1920, and received a masters degree in drama from Hopkins in 1951; he was a playwright, stage director, and professor of dramatics at Goucher College.

The Gail and Hinrichs families were related; Ella Hinrich's parents were George Wilhelm Gail (born 1828, Giessen, Germany) and Mary Sophie Felgner (born 1837, Baltimore). G.W. Gail was a principal in the Gail and Ax Tobacco Company, established circa 1860. The plant at Charles and Barre Streets had 350 employees, processing tobacco for snuff, chewing, and smoking. Ella Hinrichs' brother, George William Gail, Jr. (born 1864) served as Fire Commissioner of Baltimore at the time of the 1904 Baltimore Fire.

Other children in the photographs are also related to the Hinrichs and the Gails: the Schmeisser family were cousins through the Gail family, and Ella and Charles Meyer were the (possibly adopted) children of Charles F. Meyer and Nanny Gail.