LESLIE MORTIER SHAW
SHAW, LESLIE MORTIMER.The entire range of American biography contains few more inspiring examples of the development of sturdy, self-reliant American manhood than the history of Leslie M. Shaw, twice governor of the state of Iowa and now secretary of the treasury of the United States.
He was born at Morristown, Vermont, November 2, 1848. His parents were Boardman Oscar Shaw and Louisa (Spalding) Shaw. Among his father's ancestors, Ebenezer Shaw was a pioneer and early selectman of Morristown. His mother, Louisa Spalding, a woman of strong character and enduringly beneficent influence, was the daughter of Jason Spalding, an educator of note in Vermont and eastern New York in the early part of the last century.
Leslie M. Shaw spent his minority in his native state, most of the time in the town of Stowe, on a farm where he performed his full part of the burden of rugged farm work. His early education was such as the common schools of the county afforded, supplemented by a term or two at an academy at Morrisville. By working as a farm hand and by teaching school he secured income enough to meet the expenses of his tuition at the academy and to have something left over. With this equipment in health, education and habits of industry, the young man started for the West on attaining his majority in 1869. He had long entertained the desire to own a farm in the Northwest, and he directed his steps toward the state of Iowa. Drawn to Mt. Vernon in that state by the fact that an aunt had made her home at that place, and finding Mt. Vernon the seat of Cornell college, an institution of excellent repute in Iowa, he determined to obtain a collegiate education. As before, he supported himself by his own exertions, working at anything that offered—teaching, selling fruit trees, and toiling at farm work—until he had completed the full four years' course, graduating in 1874. He at once entered the Iowa law school, and was graduated from that institution in 1876. He then settled at the town of Denison and there began the practice of his profession, devoting his time and
