128 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
erty by purchase from Thomas Jefferson Payne, in 1840. 
Payne had laid out a race track, the center of which was 
in a grove of trees. Near the grove Mr. Shaw built his 
house with a tower and called it Tower Grove. This was 
his country home and became his favorite spot. Like all 
Englishmen of wealth, he believed in having a town. house 
as well as a country house, so the town house was built on 
Seventh and Locust Streets, in 1851, two years after the 
completion of Tower Grove. 
Shortly after purchasing this property, Mr. Shaw went 
to Europe, and most of his time during the next ten years 
was spent in visiting different places of interest on the 
Continent, Constantinople and Egypt. The idea of estab- 
lishing a garden came to him during this time. Among 
interesting papers left by him is a sheet entitled “List of 
places worthy of notice,” in which is given a list of thirteen 
places, with addresses and directions as to how to reach them, 
in Mr. Shaw’s own handwriting. The thirteen places are 
all gardens or nurseries. Mr. Thomas Dimmock, in a 
Le ale Sami: sketch of Mr. Shaw,1 says that Mr. Shaw told 
him that “it was while walking through the grounds at 
Chatsworth—the most magnificent private residence in 
Europe—that the fruitful idea first dawned upon him. He 
said to himself: ‘Why may I not have a garden, too? I 
have enough land and money for something of the same 
sort in a smaller way.’” In the “Guide to the Missouri 
Botanical Gardens” Mr. Shaw says that the idea of start- 
ing the Garden came “during his travels in Europe from 
1840 to 1850.” Observing the great attention paid to pub- 
lic parks and gardens in England, France, and Germany 
and the high esteem in which these institutions were held 
by the people of those countries, he conceived the idea of 
founding a Missouri Botanical Garden, for which the 
grounds, ample in extent and in close vicinity to the future 
Sreat city of the west, were so appropriate. The plan of 
the Garden was determined on, drains constructed, and the 
wall surrounding the same commenced in 1855. 
Dr. George Engelmann, one of the foremost botanists in 
America, resided in St.. Louis, and Mr. Shaw went to him 
with his hopes and his plans. Dr. Engelmann was study- 
ing cacti and various other groups of plants and had started 
a small garden near his home. He encouraged Mr. Shaw 
im every way possible, selected botanical books for him to 
study and gave him his first introduction to scientific botany. 
When Dr. Engelmann went to Europe in 1856 he was com- 
missioned by Mr. Shaw to buy books and other things 
*Mo. Bot. Gard, Rept., vol. 1, p. 12, 1890. 
