Quincy Adams Shaw

Quincy Adams Shaw (February 8, 1825 – June 12, 1908) was a Boston Brahmin investor and business magnate who was the first president of Calumet and Hecla Mining Company.

Family and early life Shaw came from a famous and moneyed Boston family. With a net worth of $1,000,000 in 1846 , Shaw's father, Robert Gould Shaw (1776–1853), was one of the wealthiest men in Boston. His mother was Elizabeth Willard Parkman (March 31, 1785April 14, 1853), whose father Samuel Parkman (August 22, 1751June 11, 1824) was the original source of capital upon which her husband built one of the wealthiest and largest business enterprises in Boston at that time.

Shaw's older brother Francis George Shaw (October 23, 1809November 7, 1882) was an outspoken advocate of the abolition of slavery. Shaw's nephew, son of Francis George, was Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837July 18, 1863). The latter was a colonel in the Volunteer Army of the United States during the American Civil War, and commander of the all-black 54th Regiment. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed in action during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863.

Career Shaw and his brother-in-law Henry Lee Higginson (1834–1919) became major investors in the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, and Shaw was the first president of the company. Shaw retained that position for only a few months before Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (another brother-in-law) took over.

In his Boston Daily Globe obituary, Shaw was named "the heaviest individual taxpayer in Massachusetts" and "the head of the family whose members in various ways have done much to promote the educational and commercial interests of Boston."