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He was born of Puritan stock at Lanesborough, Massachusetts, on the 21st of April 1818, the son of Henry Shaw, who was a representative in Congress in 1817-1821. His grandfather Samuel Shaw who also served in the U. S. Congress from 1808–1813. His uncle was John Savage, yet another Congressman.
Shaw attended Hamilton College, but was expelled in his second year for removing the clapper of the campus bell.
Shaw worked as a farmer, coal miner, explorer, and auctioneer before he began making a living as a journalist and writer in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1858. Under the pseudonym "Josh Billings" he wrote in an informal voice full of the slang of the day, with often eccentric phonetic spelling, dispensing wit and folksy common-sense wisdom. His books include Farmers' Allminax, Josh Billings' Sayings, Everybody's Friend, Choice Bits of American Wit and Josh Billings' Trump Kards. He toured, giving lectures of his writings, which were very popular with the audiences of the day. He was also reputed to be the eponymous author of the "Uncle Ezek's Wisdom" column in the Century Magazine.
Quotations:
"Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it. "
"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. "
"There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it. "
"A secret ceases to be a secret if it is once confided—it is like a dollar bill, once broken, it is never a dollar again. "
"Love is like the measles; we can't have it bad but once, and the later in life we have it the tougher it goes with us. "
"Poverty is the stepmother of genius. "
He married Zipha E. Bradford in 1845. Billings' daughter Grace Shaw Duff donated money for the building of Wilhenford Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, which opened in 1910. The name combined a syllable of her father's' name (Hen) with her husband's and son's.
