They were a group of philosophers and teachers who founded The Saint Louis Philosophical Society in 1866 and began to publish The Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1867. The founding members were Henry C. Brokmeyer (1826–1906), William T. Harris (1835–1909), and Denton Jacques Snider (1841–1925). Brokmeyer was a Prussian immigrant who had come to the United States in 1844, attended Brown University, plied several trades, and lived in a hut (like Henry David Thoreau [1817–1862]). Harris was a Yale dropout who came to St. Louis to teach Pittman shorthand. Brokmeyer and Harris undertook the project of translating Hegel’s Science of Logic (1812) into English. Snider, who had graduated from Oberlin College, came to St. Louis in 1865 to teach at Christian Brothers College.