Early Life
Harry Crosby was born as Henry Sturgis Crosby (his parents Stephen Van Rensslaer Crosby and Henrietta Marion Grew later changed his middle name to "Grew") in Boston's exclusive Back Bay neighborhood. He was the product of generations of blue-blood Americans, descended from the Van Rensselaers, Morgans, and Grews. His father's mother was the great-granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton. Also among Harry's ancestors were Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler and William Floyd, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
He had one sibling, a sister, Katherine Schuyler Crosby, nicknamed Kitsa, who was born in 1901. They moved shortly after his birth to a home with a dance floor that could accommodate 150 people. His parents instilled in him a love for poetry. He would toss water bombs off the upper stories of the house onto unsuspecting guests. The family spent its summers on the North Shore of Massachusetts at a second home in Manchester, about 25 miles (40 km) from Boston.
As a child, he attended the exclusive Noble and Greenough School. In 1913, when he was 14 years old, his parents decided it was time to send him to St. Mark’s School, which he graduated from in 1917.
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