Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1889 — THE LATE HENRY SHAW. [ARTICLE]

THE LATE HENRY SHAW.

ST. LOUIS’ GREATEST BENEFACTOB PASSES AWAY. Making a Large Fortune in Twenty Yean of Business Life He Retired and Spent Two Score Years in Study and Deeds of Charity —What He Has Done for St. Louis. ASt Louis (Mo.) dispatch says: The flags in the city are at half-mast on account ot the death of Henry Shaw, the city’s greatest benefactor. By proclamation of Mayor Noonan all the city pfficea were closed on the day of the funeraL Mr. Shaw was an Englishman by birth, coming of a sturdy and thrifty stock noted for business sagacity and success in life. Leaving his native city at the age of 19 he came to America and located finally in St. Louis, arriving here May 4, 1819. He embarked in the hardware business on his own account in a small establishment on the river front, where he prospered, and after twenty years of active commercial life he found himself possessed of a competence that justified him in his determination to retire from business. This he did when but 40 years of age, since which time he had not been connected with any enterprise that required either his attention or the investment of any portion of his wealth. Even during the busiest part of his life he had found time for study, and when he retired from active life Mr. Shaw was well fitted to appreciate and profit by the years of travel in which he indulged at this period. He visited nearly every quarter of the globe, being away from this country ten years. It was upon his return from this long period of travel that he commenced the study and cultivation of plants and flowers, and it was in the prosecution of these studies that the now world-re-nowned botanical gardens had their origin. Devoted to the fascinating pursuit with which he sought to ornament his life of leisure and culture, Mr. Shaw determined to extend to others the pleasure that his wealth had procured for himself, and to that end made his gardens and beautiful estate free to the public. He continued enlarging and adding to the gardens, maintained them entirely at his own expense, and yet generously allowed such free use and enjoyment of them that they were as much a place of resort as could have been a city park or other public property. In the extent and variety of this horticultural and floricultural collection the gardens rank with the best displays of Europe. With the death of Henry Shaw they become the property of the city of St. Louis— a gift the value of which can not be estimated. Mr. Shaw’s estate is valued at $2,500,000, and it is thought the greater part will be left to the city of St. Louis in various bequests. Mr. Shaw was by leaning an Episcopalian and the charitable institutions of that church, it is understood, will be particularly favored in his wilL The only relatives of the the deceased in this country are his sister, Mrs. Julia Morris, and a cousin, Frank Bradbury. A large number of distant relatives reside in Manchester, England. His life is a record that has but few parallels, a career similar to those that have caused the names of such men as Stephen Girard and George Peabody to be placed among the “immortals” of American history, where that of Henry Shaw will also henceforward be known.