HENRY SHAW AND HIS BOTANICAL GARDEN.
It is rare that a poor boy comes to America from a foreign land, with almost no money in his pocket, and leaves to his adopted town and State a million four hundred thousand dollars to beautify a city, to elevate its taste, and to help educate its people.
Henry Shaw of St. Louis, Mo., was born in Sheffield, England, July 24, 1800. He was the oldest of four children, having had a brother who died in infancy and two sisters. His father, Joseph Shaw, was a manufacturer of grates, fire-irons, etc., at Sheffield.
The boy obtained his early education at Thorne, a village not far from his native town, and used to get his lessons in an arbor, half hidden by vines, and surrounded by trees and flowers. From childhood he had a passion for a garden, and worked with his two little sisters in planting anemones and buttercups.
From the school at Thorne the lad was transferred to Mill Hill, about twenty miles from London, to a "Dissenting" school, the father being a Baptist. Here he studied for six years, Latin, French, and probably other languages, as he knew in later life German, Italian, and Spanish. He became especially fond of French literature, and in manhood read and wrote French as easily and correctly as English. He was for a long time regarded as the best mathematician in St. Louis.
In 1818, when Henry was eighteen, he and the rest of the family came to Canada. The same year his father sent him to New Orleans to learn how to raise cotton; but the climate did not please him, and he removed to a small French trading-post, called St. Louis, May 3, 1819.
The youth had a little stock of cutlery with him, the capital for which his uncle, Mr. James Hoole, had furnished. His nephew was always grateful for this kind act. He rented a room on the second floor of a building, and cooked, slept, ate, and sold his goods in this one room. He went out very little in the evening, preferring to read books, and sometimes played chess with a friend. It is thought that he rather avoided meeting young ladies, as he perhaps naturally preferred to marry an English girl, when able to support her; but when the fortune was earned he was wedded to his gardens, his flowers, and his books, so that he never married. The young man showed great energy in his hardware business, was very economical, honest, and always punctual. He had little patience with persons who were not prompt, and failed to keep an engagement.
Though usually self-poised, possessing almost perfect control over a naturally quick temper, a gentleman relates that he once saw him angry because a man failed to keep an appointment; but Mr. Shaw regretted that he had allowed himself to speak sharply, and asked the offending person to dine with him. His head-gardener, Mr. James Gurney, from the Royal Botanical Garden in Regent's Park, London, said many years ago of Mr. Shaw, "In twenty-three years I never heard him speak a harsh or an irritable word. No matter what went wrong,—and on such a place, and with so many men, things will go wrong occasionally,—he was always pleasant and cheerful, making the best of what could not be helped."