faithfulness contributed very largely to make the Garden and Tower Grove Park what they are to-day. Mr. Shaw, however, never abandoned his personal supervision, and he thus spent the last twenty-five years of his life perfecting what he had begun. Until the summer of 1885 he had not been out of St. Louis, except to drive out to dine with a friend, for about twenty years. At this time the hot weather caused a failure of his usual good health, and he went to northern Illinois and Wisconsin for some time. He returned much improved and resumed his accustomed avocations with renewed vigor.
On the twenty-fourth of July, 1889, he received numerous visitors who congratulated him upon the beginning of his ninetieth year. Although weak, he was able to meet them in the drawing-room, and his mind was as clear as ever. This, however, was his last public appearance. 
Fig. 17. Mr. Geo. W. Letterman. An attack of malaria resulted in his death on August 25. On Saturday, August 31, he was laid to rest in the mausoleum which had been already prepared in the midst of the garden which he had created—not only for himself, but for all succeeding generations.
Mr. G. W. Letterman is one of the few persons who have worked upon botany in the vicinity of St. Louis during their whole lifetime. Mr. Letterman has worked especially in Missouri, but is also very familiar with the plants of the region included in eastern and northern Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Indian Territory. He has accumulated a very large herbarium, in which the flora of St. Louis is represented probably better than in any other private herbarium.
- ↑ Sargent, C. S., "Silva of North America," 13: 79-80, 1902.
