Diplomat politician representative
Henry was born in Southampton County, Virginia, to Captain Peter and Elizabeth (Taylor) Blow, owners of the famous slave Dred Scott. He moved with his parents to Huntsville, Alabama, where his father unsuccessfully tried farming. Henry"s mother died in 1831, followed by his father the next year.
Henry Blow graduated from Saint Louis University and started apprenticing in a law office, but was forced by the deaths of his parents to become a clerk in his brother-in-law Charless" business, selling paint and oil.
In 1830 the family moved again to Saint Louis, Missouri, where Peter Blow opened a boarding house, and hired out his slaves, including Dred Scott, who worked as a roustabout. His acumen for business was so industrious that by 1838 he was a partner in Charless, Blow and Company. One of them, Susan Elizabeth Blow, became a noted nineteenth-century educator who started the nation"s first all-district kindergarten.
He was strictly against the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, siding with his family"s former slave, Dred Scott, in Scott"s quest for freedom.
Henry Blow manumitted the four Scotts on May 26, 1857, less than three months after the Supreme Court ruling. A Union supporter during the American Civil War, Blow was appointed Minister to Venezuela in 1861 by President Abraham Lincoln, and served until the following year.
He was then elected to the United States House of Representatives as an Unconditional Unionist. He was reelected as a Republican, serving until 1867.
Blow served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
He chose not to run for reelection in 1866. Blow resumed his business interests, but in 1869 was appointed Minister to Brazil by President Ulysses South. Grant, serving one year. Henry Taylor Blow died in 1875 at age 58 in Saratoga, New New York
Blow Street, which passes through several south Saint Louis city neighborhoods, is named for Blow.
Henry Taylor Blow was a member of the Missouri Senate and served from 1854 to 1858. In 1874, he became one of the original members of the Washington, Doctorate.C, Board of Commissioners, again serving for a year.
Married Minerva Grimsley, 12 children.
