George Holt Henshaw's labors in railroad construction along the Ottawa River, coupled with his keen sense of observation and an analytical mind, gave him the experience that he would later apply to the design of a novel solution to the seasonal woes of the Mississippi River. Every several years, the river tended to inconveniently overflow its banks, resulting in millions of dollars of damage to life and property. George Henshaw was perhaps ahead of his time in noting that attempts to prevent floods, by using levees to artificially constrict the river's flow, would create more problems than they solved.
After being relieved of his responsibilities at the St. Anne lock, George moved to Brooklyn in the late 1880s, and in a paper published by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1889, tried to show that a far simpler and less costly set of measures would do more to alleviate flooding than would the levees and dams planned for the river by the then recently formed Mississippi River Commission. George Henshaw's solution was to build a series of strategically placed fence-like structures resting on the riverbed that would generate enough turbulence to clear the channel and prevent a buildup of sediment. But being couched in simple terms compared to many of the elaborate engineering ventures of his time, his plan did not attract much attention. Sure enough, a year later, the government's new and costly infrastructure failed miserably to contain the Mississippi's flood waters. In a letter to the New York Times in 1891, Henshaw lamented that the commission had not even commented on the plan he submitted to them. He questioned the structure of the commission, which, he noted, insulated it from public influence, good or bad.
The commission's approved scheme, George Henshaw observed, failed to take into account the buildup of sediment which would normally have spread over the entire delta but that was now constricted to the area in between the levees, displacing the water and causing massive periodic flooding more serious than that which mother nature, unassisted, would have allowed.
Three days after delivering his letter to The Times, George Henshaw collapsed from a heart attack at his home at 79 State Street in 1891 at age 59.
Henshaw left behind a wife, three sons and three daughters. The youngest, Cornelia Gracie, was only fourteen, while the eldest, a grown man of 28, George Herbert Henshaw, was already well traveled in social circles in Brooklyn and had raised himself from a store clerk to a crack reporter for one of the upstart athletic magazines, Sport. Esther, one of his younger sisters, was a beautiful woman of 17 at the time of her father's death. Another sister, Sarah, had married an attorney from the Midwest, Clarence Childs, and the couple had made their home in Minneapolis. By then, brother Frederick Valdemar Henshaw was well on his way to a successful career as an engineer in the burgeoning utilities sector, while the youngest male of the brood, Walter Percival Henshaw, would soon be attending the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
In the meantime, Sarah Middagh Gracie, who around 1865 had purchased the State Street townhouse in which the Henshaws now lived, was, after her separation from William Gracie, inclined to charitable and religious works. She was one of the founding members of Grace Church on the Heights, and, with her mother, Martha Middagh, contributed $3,000 ($50,000 in today's dollars) toward the purchase of a pipe organ for the new church, which opened its doors in 1847. Again in the 1880s, she made still another hefty donation toward a stained-glass window, to which she lent her name in dedication. She was among a group of women who established the Church Charity Foundation of both the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island and of Grace Church. These institutions provided medical and other assistance to needy citizens, particularly the elderly.
An interesting story about Sarah Middagh Gracie shows how her instinctive generosity could easily be taken advantage of. Around the time of George Henshaw's death, Sarah was fooled by a young man who presented himself as one in need, and she provided him with money for his upkeep. Little did she know that the same young man had made the rounds of all the directors of the Church Charity Foundation, saying that Sarah had referred the young man to them, and collected similar sums from each. The scoundrel broadened his base of support in Brooklyn by preying on other charities before the bad news hit the Brooklyn Eagle. The good-natured Sarah could easily become a target of the unscrupulous if her heartstrings were stroked with a sob story.
Sarah's last days were lived at the family home. She fell one day and broke her leg, an injury which, at her age, precipitated a more serious health crisis. It was not many days afterward that this woman who had lived such a full life, and through whose being flowed a rich history spanning 90 years, breathed her last. She died in 1900, a full 35 years after she first occupied her State Street townhouse, leaving the surviving Henshaws in a quite comfortable position financially. Thus Esther, Nancy's mother, was certainly surrounded by culture and priviledge, while her mother continued to encouraged her to attend balls and parties in quest of a quality marriage partner. In Frederic Kingsland Middlebrook, she had found the man of her dreams.
After a long courtship, the two married. The wedding of Frederic, 31 years old at the time, and Esther, 29, took place at the new chapel of Christ Church in Belleport, Long Island in 1905. It was a small family affair, and Esther's sister, Cornelia, now a gracious woman of 26, served as bridesmaid. Esther's mother owned a summer cottage in Belleport, Long Island, and the family held Frederick and Esther's reception there after the church service.
Four years later, Nancy was born, and in Frederic's upward climb, he had brought his family to live on the fashionable West Side of Manhattan a few doors off Central Park West. As soon as Nancy turned six, Esther enrolled her in St. Agatha's. It was school that did more for Nancy than any psychologist could. Whatever the difficulties at home, the warmth and love of her school chums always managed to lift her out of the abyss. So, in spite of the family's apparently declining fortunes, and Frederic's inability to act as a responsible father, Nancy managed to keep her head above water.
On this fall day, the 29th of October, 1923, one can imagine Nancy's pace quickening as she approached home, thinking, perhaps, about her school chums, her class work, her home life. While she climbed the stairs to her family's walkup apartment, unlocked the door with her key and pushed it open, threw her books on the kitchen table and flopped herself in one of the comfortable chairs in the tiny apartment, her father was uptown in one of his favorite local haunts, a tavern on Amsterdam Avenue and 108th Street. This meeting with his drinking buddies was, however, to take an unexpected turn.
As he chatted at the bar, Frederic apparently fell backward, or so official reports indicate, and dropped to the floor, hitting his head and fracturing his skull. Whether from the blow or from a prior condition triggered by his habitual overconsumption of liquor, he went into convulsions. Confronted with the frightful scene and unable to do anything about it, the bar owner contacted the authorities.
When the police arrived 20 minutes later, Frederic was still thrashing about on the floor of the tavern, blood oozing from his scalp and forming a rather large pool around his head. An ambulence rushed him to nearby Knickerbocker Hospital, where doctors did their best to treat his injuries. The prognosis was not good, as the fracture of his skull had led to brain injuries and internal bleeding.
The family had been notified, but naturally met the news with mixed reaction, as they were used to Frederic's late arrival at home in an inebriated state. Grandma Emily, Aunt Eleanor, wife Esther and daughter Nancy all climbed into a taxi and rushed over to the uptown hospital.
Well aware of Frederic's precarious physical condition, the physician in charge approached the gathering and delivered the pessimistic news, but the family awaited a more complete prognosis. It was not long before they heard the worst. Frederic, who never regained consciousness, was pronounced dead late that evening.
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