Weber, Henry J.–(1841-1915)–Nursery,
Missouri (now called Affton)–son of Carl Christian Weber, was born Jonas
Heinrich Weber, but abandoned his German name and always went by Henry
J. Weber. Prior to his father’s death, he began growing fruit trees
for sale on six acres of the family farm. This was the beginning
of H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery. In his youth, he worked on several
St. Louis nurseries, before managing his father’s farm. He married
Emelia Christine Sutter on January 31, 1867, and later considered that
to be the founding year of the nursery. The 1870 federal census listed
him as a nurseryman. In 1877, Henry’s siblings sold him their
parcels of the family farm. Weber had eight children, all of the
six surviving children worked in the nursery, with the four sons becoming
their father’s partners in the nursery. The nursery eventually became
a large-scale commercial operation. In 1899, Weber purchased 123
acres of Hardscrabble, the original farm of Ulysses S. Grant. The
firm was incorporated in 1903 as H. J. Weber and Sons Nursery, with Henry
as president and his sons officials of the firm. The firm had displays
at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Their first catalog was published
before 1892. In 1925, a fire destroyed the family home and six other
nursery buildings. From 1935 until 1940, the nursery piled up deficits
of more than twenty-five thousand dollars annually. The nursery closed
in 1940, a victim of the Great Depression.
Sources: MHR