Henry Shelton Sanford

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Henry Shelton Sanford (June 15, 1823 – May 21, 1891) was an American diplomat and businessman who founded the city of Sanford, Florida.

Sanford was born in Woodbury, Connecticut into an old New England family. He was the son of Nehemiah Curtis Sanford, who made his fortune in selling brass tacks and was a senator of the Connecticut Senate.[1] Henry Shelton Sanford enrolled in Trinity College in 1839, but did not graduate. He obtained the title of ‘General,’ which he is often noted by, after donating a cannon battery to the Union in the Civil War.[2]

Sanford first entered diplomacy in 1847, when he was named the Secretary of the American legation to St. Petersburg. In 1848, he was named acting Secretary to the American legation in Frankfurt. President Zachary Taylor then appointed him to the same post in Paris, where he would remain from 1849 to 1854, the last year of which after a promotion to Chargé d'affaires. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him as Minister to Belgium in 1861. He retained this position until 1869.

In 1870, Sanford bought land on Lake Monroe and founded the city of Sanford, Florida.[3] He founded an orange plantation at Lake Monroe that was fairly successful. Sanford had numerous other business interests, some in the Congo after his work for Belgium, but none were profitable.

The Belgian King Leopold II used Sanford to convince Henry Morton Stanley to explore the Congo basin for Belgium in 1878. He then hired Sanford in 1883 as his envoy to the United States to try to gain American recognition for his colony in Congo.[4] Sanford remained loyal to the Belgian king until 1889, when serving as the American representative at Leopold’s Anti-Slavery Conference, Leopold betrayed his earlier free trade plans for the Congo and asked for the imposition of customs duties so as to aid the destruction of slavery in the Congo. [5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sanford Historical Society, “General Henry S. Sanford.” http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/id18.html
  2. ^ Hochschild, Adam. “King Leopold’s Ghost,” page 58. Mariner Books, 1999.
  3. ^ Clark, James C. 200 Quick Looks at Florida History, page 159. Pineapple Press, 2000.
  4. ^ Hochschild, Adam. “King Leopold’s Ghost,” page 77. Mariner Books, 1999.
  5. ^ Hochschild, Adam. “King Leopold’s Ghost,” page 93. Mariner Books, 1999.
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