Famous Givers and Their Gifts

When Reuben Runyan Springer died in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 10, 1884, at the age of eighty-four years, he did not forget to give the Sisters of Charity $20,000 for a foundling asylum. His family were originally from Sweden. When a youth he was clerk on a steamboat from Cincinnati to New Orleans, and soon acquired an interest in the boat, and began his fortune. Later, he was partner in a grocery house. Mr. Springer gave to the Little Sisters of the Poor $35,000, Good Samaritan Hospital $30,000, St. Peter's Benevolent Society $50,000, besides many other gifts. To music and art he gave $420,000. To his two faithful domestics and friends, he gave $7,500 each, and to his coachman his horses, carriages, harness, and $5,000. His various charities amounted to a million dollars or more.

Most cities have, or ought to have, a foundling asylum, though often it bears a different name. The Roman Catholics seem to be wiser in this respect, and more careful to save infant life, than we of the Protestant faith.

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."

Mr. Shaw gave close attention to business in the growing town of St. Louis, and in 1839, after he had been there twenty years, was astonished to find that his annual profits were $25,000. He said, "this was more money than any man in my circumstances ought to make in a single year;" and he resolved to go out of business as soon as a good opportunity presented itself. This occurred the following year, in 1840; and at forty years of age, Mr. Shaw retired from business with a fortune of $250,000, equivalent to a million, probably, at the present day.

After twenty years of constant labor he determined to take a little rest and change. In September, 1840, he went to Europe, stopping in Rochester, N.Y., where his parents and sisters then resided, and took his younger sister with him.

He was absent two years, and coming home in 1842, soon arranged for another term of travel abroad. He remained in Europe three years, travelling in almost all places of interest, including Constantinople and Egypt. He kept journals, and wrote letters to friends, showing careful observation and wide reading. He made a third and last visit to Europe in 1851, to attend the first World's Fair, held in London. During this visit he conceived the plan of what eventually became his great gift. While walking through the beautiful grounds of Chatsworth, the magnificent home of the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Shaw said to himself, "Why may not I have a garden too? I have enough land and money for something of the same sort in a smaller way."

The old love for flowers and trees, as in boyhood, made the man in middle life determine to plant not so much for himself as for posterity. He had finished a home in the suburbs of St. Louis, Tower Grove, in 1849; and another was in process of building in the city on the corner of Seventh and Locust Streets, when Mr. Shaw returned from Europe in 1851.

For five or six years he beautified the grounds of his country home, and in 1857 commissioned Dr. Engelmann, then in Europe, to examine botanical gardens and select proper books for a botanical library. Correspondence was begun with Sir William J. Hooker, the distinguished director of the famous Kew Gardens in London, our own beloved botanist, Professor Asa Gray of Harvard College, and others. Dr. Engelmann urged Mr. Shaw to purchase the large herbarium of the then recently deceased Professor Bernhardi of Erfurt, Germany, which was done, Hooker writing, "The State ought to feel that it owes you much for so much public spirit, and so well directed."

March 14, 1859, Mr. Shaw secured from the State Legislature an Act enabling him to convey to trustees seven hundred and sixty acres of land, "in trust, upon a portion thereof to keep up, maintain, and establish a botanic garden for the cultivation and propagation of plants, flowers, fruit and forest trees, and for the dissemination of the knowledge thereof among men, by having a collection thereof easily accessible; and the remaining portion to be used for the purpose of maintaining a perpetual fund for the support and maintenance of said garden, its care and increase, and the museum, library, and instruction connected therewith."

For the next twenty-five years Mr. Shaw gave his time and strength to the development of his cherished garden and park. "He lived for them," says Mr. Thomas Dimmock, "and, as far as was practicable, in them; walking or driving every day, when weather and health allowed, and permitting no work of importance to go on without more or less of his personal inspection and direction. The late Dr. Asa Gray, than whom there can be no higher authority, once said, 'This park and the Botanical Garden are the finest institutions of the kind in the country; in variety of foliage the park is unequalled.'"

Once when Mr. Shaw was escorting a lady through his gardens, she said, "I cannot understand, sir, how you are able to remember all these different and difficult names." – "Madam," he replied, with a courtly bow, "did you ever know a mother who could forget the names of her children? These plants and flowers are my children. How can I forget them?"

So devoted was Mr. Shaw to his work, that he did not go out of St. Louis for nearly twenty years, except for a drive to the neighboring village of Kirkwood to dine with a friend.

Nine years after the garden had been established, in 1866, Mr. Shaw began to create Tower Grove Park, of two hundred and seventy-six acres, planting from year to year over twenty thousand trees, all raised in the arboretum of the garden. Walks were gravelled, flower-beds laid out, ornamental water provided, and artistic statues of heroic size, made by Baron von Mueller of Munich, of Shakespeare, Humboldt, and Columbus. The niece of Humboldt, who saw the statue of her uncle at Munich, wrote to Mr. Shaw, saying that "Europe had done nothing comparable to it for the great naturalist."

Mr. Shaw used to say, when setting out these trees, that he was "planting them for posterity," as he did not expect to live to see them reach maturity. They were, however, of good size when he died in his ninetieth year, Sunday, Aug. 25, 1889.

"The death, peaceful and painless," says Mr. Dimmock, "occurred in his favorite room on the second floor of the old homestead, by the window of which he sat nearly every night for more than thirty years until the morning hours, absorbed in the reading which had been the delight of his life. This room was always plainly furnished, containing only a brass bedstead, tables, chairs, and the few books he loved to have near him. The windows looked out upon the old garden which was the first botanical beginning at Tower Grove.

"On Saturday, Aug. 31, after such ceremonial as St. Louis never before bestowed upon any deceased citizen, Henry Shaw was laid to rest in the mausoleum long prepared in the midst of the garden he had created – not for himself merely, but for the generations that shall come after him, and who, enjoying it, will 'rise up and call him blessed.'"

Mr. Shaw was beloved by his workmen for his uniform kindness to them. Once when a young boy who was visiting him, and walking with him in the garden, passed a lame workman, and did not speak, although Mr. Shaw said "Good-morning, Henry," the courteous old gentleman said, "Charles, you did not speak to Henry. Go back and say 'Good-morning' to him." Mr. Shaw employed many Bohemians, because he said, "They do not seem to be very popular with us, and I think I ought to help them all I can."

Mr. Shaw was always simple in his tastes and economical in his habits. He drove his one-horse barouche till his friends, owing to his infirmities from increasing age, prevailed upon him to have a carriage and a driver.

Four years before the death of Mr. Shaw he endowed a School of Botany as a department of Washington University, giving improved real estate yielding over $5,000 annually. He desired "to promote education and investigation in that science, and in its application to horticulture, arboriculture, medicine, and the arts, and for the exemplification of the Divine wisdom and goodness as manifested throughout the vegetable kingdom."

Dr. Asa Gray had been deeply interested in this movement, and twice visited St. Louis to consult with Mr. Shaw. By the recommendation of Dr. Gray, Mr. William Trelease, Professor of Botany in Wisconsin University at Madison, a graduate of Cornell University, and associated for some time with Professor Gray in various labors, was made Englemann Professor in the Henry Shaw School of Botany.

Professor Trelease was also made director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and has proved his fitness for the position by his high rank in scholarship, his contributions to literature, and his devotion to the work which Mr. Shaw felt satisfaction in committing to his care. His courtesy as well as ability have won him many friends. Mr. Shaw left by will various legacies to relatives and institutions, his property, invested largely in land, having become worth over a million dollars. He gave to hospitals, several orphan asylums, Old Ladies' Home, Girls' Industrial Home, Young Men's Christian Association, etc., but by far the larger part to his beloved garden. He wished it to be open every day of the week to the public, except on Sundays and holidays, the first Sunday in June and the first Sunday in September being exceptions to the rule. When the garden was opened the first Sunday of June, 1895, there were 20,159 visitors, and in September, though showery, 15,500.

Mr. Shaw bequeathed $1,000 annually for a banquet to the trustees of the garden, and literary and scientific men whom they choose to invite, thus to spread abroad the knowledge of the useful work the garden and schools of botany are doing; also $400 for a banquet to the gardeners of the institution, with the florists, nurserymen, and market-gardeners of St. Louis and vicinity. Each year $500 is to be used in premiums at flower-shows, and $200 for an annual sermon "on the wisdom and goodness of God as shown in the growth of flowers, fruits, and other products of the vegetable kingdom."

The Missouri Botanical Garden, Shaw's Garden as it is more commonly called, covering about forty-five acres, is situated on Tower Grove Avenue, about three miles southwest of the New Union Station. The former city residence of Mr. Shaw has been removed to the garden, in which are the herbarium and library, with 12,000 volumes. The herbarium contains the large collection of the late Dr. George Engelmann, about 100,000 specimens of pressed plants; and the general collection contains even more than this number of specimens from all parts of the world. The palms, the cacti, the tree-ferns, the fig-trees, etc., are of much interest. There is an observatory in the centre of the garden; and south of this, in a grove of shingle-oaks and sassafras-trees, is the mausoleum of Henry Shaw, containing a life-like reclining marble statue of the founder of the garden, with a full-blown rose in his hand.

During the past year several ponds have been made in the garden for the Victoria Regia, or Amazon water-lily, and other lilies. On the approach of winter, over a thousand plants are taken from the ground, potted, and distributed to charitable institutions and poor homes in the city.

Much practical good has resulted from the great gift of Henry Shaw. According to his will, there are six scholarships provided for garden pupils. Three hundred dollars a year are given to each, with tuition free, and lodging in a comfortable house adjacent to the garden. So many persons have applied for instruction, that as many are received as can be taught conveniently, each paying $25 yearly tuition fee.

The culture of flowers, small fruits, orchards, house-plants, etc., is taught; also landscape-gardening, drainage, surveying, and kindred subjects. "It is safe to predict," says the Hon. Wm. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, "that the future will see a large representation of specialists resorting to St. Louis to pursue the studies necessary for the promotion of agricultural industry."

Dr. Trelease gives two courses of evening lectures at Washington University each year, and at the garden he gives practical help to his learners. He investigates plant diseases and the remedies, and aids the fruit-grower, the florist, and the farmer, in the best methods with grasses, seeds, trees, etc. He deprecates the reckless manner in which troublesome weeds are scattered from farm to farm with clover and grass seed. He and his assistants are making researches concerning plants, flowers, etc., which are published annually.

The memory of Henry Shaw, "the first great patron of botanical science in America," is held in honor and esteem by the scientific world. The flowers and trees which he loved and found pleasure in cultivating, each year make thousands happier.

Nature was to him a great teacher. In his garden, over a statue of "Victory," these words are engraved in stone: "O Lord, how manifold are thy works: in wisdom hast thou made them all."

The seasons will come and go; the flowers will bud and blossom year after year, and the trees spread out their branches: they will be a continual reminder of the white-haired man who planted them for the sake of doing good to others.

Harvard College received a valuable gift May, 1861, through the munificence of the late Benjamin Bussey of Roxbury, Mass., in property estimated at $413,092.80, "for a course of instruction in practical agriculture, and the various arts subservient thereto." The superb estate is near Jamaica Plain. The students of the Bussey Institute generally intend to become gardeners, florists, landscape-gardeners, and farmers. The Arnold Arboretum occupies a portion of the Bussey farm in West Roxbury. The fund given by the late James Arnold of New Bedford, Mass., for this purpose now amounts to $156,767.97.

JAMES SMITHSON

AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

Another Englishman besides Henry Shaw to whom America is much indebted is James Smithson, the giver of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Born in 1765 in France, he was the natural son of Hugh, third Duke of Northumberland, and Mrs. Elizabeth Macie, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and niece of Charles, Duke of Somerset.

At Pembroke College, Oxford, he was devoted to science, especially chemistry, and spent his vacations in collecting minerals. He was graduated May 26, 1786, and thereafter gave his time to study and original research. In 1790 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and became the friend of many distinguished men, both in England and on the Continent, where he lived much of the time. Among his friends and correspondents, were Sir Humphry Davy, Berzelius (the noted chemist of Sweden), Gay-Lussac the chemist, Thomson, Wollaston, and others.

He wrote and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and also in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, many valuable papers on the "Composition of Zeolite," "On a Substance Procured from the Elm Tree, called Ulmine," "On a Saline Substance from Mount Vesuvius," "On Facts Relating to the Coloring Matter of Vegetables," etc. At his death he left about two hundred manuscripts. He was deeply interested in geology, and made copious notes in his journal on rocks and mining. His life seems to have been a quiet one, devoted to intellectual pursuits.

Professor Henry Carrington Bolton, in the Popular Science Monthly for January and February, 1896, relates this incident of Smithson: "It is said that he frequently narrated an anecdote of himself which illustrated his remarkable skill in analyzing minute quantities of substances, an ability which rivalled that of Dr. Wollaston. Happening to observe a tear gliding down a lady's cheek, he endeavored to catch it on a crystal vessel. One-half the tear-drop escaped; but he subjected the other half to reagents, and detected what was then called microcosmic salt, muriate of soda, and some other saline constituents held in solution."

When Mr. Smithson was over fifty years of age, in 1818 or 1819, he had a misunderstanding with the Royal Society, owing to their refusal to publish one of his papers. It is said that prior to this he intended to leave all his wealth, over $500,000 to the society.

About three years before his death, he made a brief will, giving the income of his fortune to his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, and the whole fortune to the children of his nephew, if he should marry. In case he did not marry, Smithson bequeathed the whole of his property "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

Mr. Smithson, says Professor Simon Newcomb, "is not known to have had the personal acquaintance of an American, and his tastes were supposed to have been aristocratic rather than democratic. We thus have the curious spectacle of a retired English gentleman bequeathing the whole of his large fortune to our Government, to found an establishment which was described in ten words, without a memorandum of any kind by which his intentions could be divined, or the recipient of the gift guided in applying it."

Mr. Smithson died June 27, 1829, in Genoa, Italy, at the age of sixty-four. His nephew survived him only six years, dying unmarried at Pisa, Italy, June 5, 1835. He used the income from his uncle's estate while he lived, and upon his death it passed to the United States. Hungerford's mother, who had married a Frenchman, Madame Théodore de la Batut, claimed a life-interest in the estate of Smithson, which was granted till her death in 1861. To meet this annuity $26,210 was retained in England until she died.

For several years it was difficult to decide in what way Congress should use the money "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." John Quincy Adams desired a great astronomical observatory; Rufus Choate of Massachusetts urged a grand library; a senator from Ohio wished a botanical garden; another person a college for women; another a school for indigent children of the District of Columbia; still another a great agricultural school.