Family and Early Life
Shaw's parents were Louis Agassiz Shaw and Mary Elizabeth Saltonstall. Both parents came from wealthy and politically influential Boston Brahmin families with roots extending back to the Mayflower.
Shaw's father was born at 26 Mount Vernon Street in Beacon Hill in 1861, and the following year the family moved to Jamaica Plain. He attended George Washington Copp Noble School in Boston, and graduated from Harvard University in 1884. He married Mary Elizabeth Saltonstall on June 30, 1884 in Newton, right after the graduation ceremony. The couple moved to Chestnut Hill and had two children, Quincy Adams Shaw II (born May 21, 1885) and Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior (born on September 25, 1886). Shaw's father died at home in Chestnut Hill from tuberculosis when Louis Junior was only four years old.
Shaw had two uncles named Robert Gould Shaw. The elder uncle, Robert Gould Shaw, was a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War and commander of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first black Army units in the United States. He was killed in 1863 during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. The younger uncle, Robert Gould Shaw II, was married to Nancy Witcher Langhorne (who later became Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor). Robert Gould Shaw II had a son named Louis Agassiz Shaw II (ca. 1910 – ca. 1986), a socialite who became infamous after he strangled his maid to death on April 7, 1964.
Shaw's paternal grandparents were Quincy Adams Shaw (one of the richest men in Massachusetts through his investment in the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company) and Pauline Agassiz. Shaw's great grandfather, for whom he was named, was Louis Agassiz, noted professor of zoology at Harvard University. Another of Shaw's great grandfathers was Leverett Saltonstall I, a member of the United States House of Representatives.
Shaw married Joanne Bird of East Walpole on June 14, 1910. The couple had two children, Joanne Bird Shaw (born March 31, 1911) and Pauline Agassiz Shaw (born on November 4, 1915, died on October 30, 1992).
Read more about this topic: Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior
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