HISTORY OF HORTICULTURE IN MINNESOTA. 187 



Not so with Mr. Shaw. He proposed that the beautiful wilderness should bloom with the 

 golden apple. The native rosebuds of the prairies and the wild flowers that gleamed like 

 sunbeams, were, in his e-timation, capable and worthy of neighbors. He would plant fruit 

 so that the useful should mingle with the ornamental. This one act of his life indicates that 

 Mr. ShaAV was a gentleman who was fond of the beautiful. It established the fact that he was 

 a phihmthropist and a public benefactor. It showed that he was far-seeing; that he was 

 looking for the interests of those who were to follow him. Had it pleased Providence to 

 hand his life down to this day, this Society would have honored him more than most auy of 

 its members. Cut oft" in ripe manhood, and at a period of usefulness, all that is left for the 

 Society is to cherish his memory. A stranger, personally, the result of his good deeds brings 

 him very near to us. His name will be forever associated with the fruit growers of the 

 State. 



The committee would add that ]Mr. ShaAV was a man of enlarged ideas, positive but gentle 

 He was one of the best of neighbors. No earthly power could move him from what he 

 thought was I'ight. His mind was copiously stored with useful and instructive information. 



It is a mournful pleasure for the Society to know that his remains are gently resting in 

 Minnesota soil. The Society will be pleased to learn that all the members of his family are 

 residents of the Slate. They are among our most useful and respected citizens. His life, in 

 brief, may be stated as follows: 



He was born in Lee, New Hampshire, in 1795. At the age of eighteen, he, with the rest of 

 his father's family, moved into Exeter, Maine, where, for several years, he followed the occu- 

 pation of a farmer, and afterward, in connection with farming, entered into mercantile and 

 manufacturing business. At the age of twenty-seven he married the daughter of Dr. Benja- 

 min French, of St. Albans, Maine, who still survives him. For thirty years he resided in 

 the village of Exeter, where all his children, eight in number, were born. For a time he was 

 remarkably successful, and accumulated quite a large property for that time and place. In 

 1836 the sudden death of his eldest son, a promising boy of nine years of age, was an affliction 

 from which he seemed never to recover. From the time of that event he became unfortunate 

 in business, and met with serious losses. In 1851 he came west to retrieve his shattered for- 

 tunes, and seek a new home for his family. He came to Minnesota and took up a claim about 

 six miles from St. Paul, in his own name, and another at Cottage Grove, in the name of the 

 late Major P. P. Furber, intending to settle at the latter place. The next year, while return- 

 ing with his family, he fell in with the Rollingstone Company, and was induced to join them. 

 He reached Galena, Illinois, the next day after the last boat of the season had left the levee, 

 and was obliged to remain in that city during the winter. The next spring, on the opening 

 of navigation, he, accompanied by his two sons, came up the river to Rollingstone, now 

 known as Minnesota City. In this new country, exposure and overwork brought on conges- 

 tive chills, of which disease he died July 14th, 1852, at the age of 56 years. He was buried at 

 Minnesota City, but owing to the rapid settlement of the country, the building of railroads, 

 and other changes, the place of his burial was lost sight of, and for twenty yeais the location 

 of his grave remained unknown. In June last, while Mr. Ely, of Winona, and others, were 

 seeking for the graves of the early settlers, one was found, marked by a head-board, bearing 

 the name of John Shaw, with the date of his death. His remains were afterward removed to 

 Minneapolis for re-interment in Lakeside Cemetery. 



Before starting for the west, Mr. Shaw obtained from his neighbors a nail keg full of apple- 

 seeds, and notwithstanding the universal prophecy, that apples could never be raided in 

 Minnesota, planted them on his claim at Minnesota City, and from this beginning has sprung 

 one of the finest orchards in the State. 



Mr. Shaw was all his life time an earnest advocate of the Temperance Reform, and was 

 among the foremost in the ranks of Abolitionists. His radical views on these subjects, and 

 the fearless expression of his sentiments, made him the object of bitter persecution by anti- 

 reformers. But in the twenty years that have elapsed since his death, many of those who 

 once so bitterly opposed him, now revere his name, and acknowledge that his views were 

 just and right. 



Many such testimonials have been offered by his old New England neighbors, and by them 

 his memory is tenderly cherished. 



The prominent and ruling quality of his character was his unwavering faith in, and un- 

 swerving devotion to ideas and opinions once deliberately formed, and this as well in and 

 about the common and practical afi'airs of every day, as the higher concerns of morality, pol- 

 itics and religion. To this persistence in the face of discouragement, may, perhaps be at' 

 tributed the results which have probably settled the question of fruit culture in Minnesota. 



