Henry Taylor Blow

Henry Taylor Blow (July 15, 1817 – September 11, 1875) was a two-term U.S. Representative from Missouri and an ambassador to both Venezuela and Brazil.

Early life Henry was born in Southampton County, Virginia, to Captain Peter and Elizabeth (Taylor) Blow, owners of the famous enslaved man Dred Scott. Blow was the eighth of ten children. He moved with his parents to Huntsville, Alabama, where his father unsuccessfully tried farming. and started apprenticing in a law office, but was forced by the deaths of his parents to become a clerk in his brother-in-law Charless' business, selling paint and oil. Peter Blow had left his estate to his two unmarried daughters and Henry's younger brothers, Taylor and William. Henry was only fifteen when his father died, but that was old enough to be seen as a man able to survive on his own. Henry's married sister, Charlotte Taylor Blow, also did not receive an inheritance. She married Joseph Charless Jr. in 1831. Charless' father Joseph had founded the first newspaper west of the Mississippi. The Charless family helped Henry after the death of his father and Henry began working as a clerk at their wholesale drug and paint company. When Joseph Charles Sr. retired in 1836, Henry was made a partner in the business. In 1838, the business was renamed Charless, Blow, and Company. Only a few years later, in 1844, the partnership was dissolved. Charless retained ownership of the drugstore and Blow kept the manufacturing firm, which was later known as Collier White Lead and Oil Company. The Collier Company was one of the largest factories in St. Louis. In 1860, Blow served as the Missouri delegate at the Chicago convention where they nominated Abraham Lincoln. Blow was elected in 1862 and 1864 and served until 1867. Blow wanted to return to his businesses in St. Louis and declined to run for reelection in 1867. He resigned, "for personal considerations," only 6 months after taking office.

Personal life Blow married Minerva Grimsley (1821–1875), daughter of wealthy saddle manufacturer, Colonel Thornton and Susan (Stark) Grimsley, who started the nation's first all-district kindergarten. In 1849, after the family's house had burned down and a cholera epidemic was sweeping St. Louis, Blow moved his family to Carondelet, which was a separate city at that time. Colonel Thornton had given the family seventeen acres there. Blow built a Victorian mansion on the land that held a library with elaborate paneling and stained glass windows that were later installed at the Missouri History Museum.

Death and legacy

Henry Taylor Blow died in 1875 at age 58 in Saratoga, New York. Blow's death came just three months after Minerva's. The two were married for 35 years.

The H.T. Blow School in Washington, DC was named for him. It was later merged with Franklin Pierce Elementary School to create Blow-Pierce Elementary. More recently it was changed to a charter school called Friendship Blow Pierce Elementary School.