Bacon, Henry D.

Born: 1818-05-03 Massachusetts

Died: 1893-02-19 California

Flourished: Saint Louis, Missouri

Born in East Granville, Massachusetts, Henry D. Bacon was a businessman, banker, philanthropist, and railroad executive. He settled in St. Louis, Missouri in 1836, where he became involved in the dry goods business and the iron trade. In 1844, he married Julia Ann Page, the daughter of Daniel D. Page, a wealthy and prominent businessman and former mayor of St. Louis. Bacon and Julia eventually had at least four children together. Page brought his son-in-law on as partner in his flour manufacturing business. Four years later, the two men organized the banking house of Page & Bacon, which Bacon managed. During the banking house’s boom years, Bacon donated funds to various causes and developed a reputation as a generous benefactor. He also invested in several railroads. By 1850, he owned $50,000 in real estate. In 1855, however, the banking house collapsed, and Bacon turned his attention to the development of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad. He served both as its vice president and as a member of its board of directors. During the Civil War, he supported the Union and the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. He died in Oakland, California.

Milton H. Shutes, “Henry Douglas Bacon (1813-1893),” California Historical Society Quarterly 26 (September 1947), 193-95; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Ward 1, St. Louis, St. Louis County, MO, 84; Edmund J. Cleveland and Horace Gillette Cleveland, comp., The Genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland Families (Hartford, CT: Lockwood and Brainard, 1899), 1:686, 2:1374.