Leland Stanford, Jr.
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| Leland Stanford Jr. | |
 Leland Stanford (1872)
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| Born | May 14, 1868 Sacramento, California |
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| Died | March 13, 1884 (aged 15) Florence, Italy |
| Other names | Leland DeWitt Stanford |
| Known for | Namesake of Stanford University |
Leland Stanford Jr. (May 14, 1868 in Sacramento, California – March 13, 1884 in Florence, Italy), Leland DeWitt Stanford until age nine, was the only child of Governor Leland Stanford of California and his wife Jane Stanford and is the namesake of Stanford University in the United States.
Leland Jr. caught typhoid two months before his sixteenth birthday, while on a Grand Tour of Europe. He originally fell ill in what was then Constantinople; though his family rushed him to Florence, Italy, for medical treatment under Catholic nuns, he died shortly thereafter. After they returned to the United States, his parents devoted their fortune to a memorial, Leland Stanford Junior University, in his honor. It is said that Leland Stanford Sr. was told in a dream that the "children of California will now be his children" and that was why he started the university.[1][2][3] He is interred beside his parents at the Stanford family mausoleum on the Stanford campus.
After the death of his father on June 21, 1893, his mother guided the development of the university until her death on February 28, 1905.
[edit] Notes
- ^ The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II, p. 129. New York: James T. White & Company, 1899. Reprint of 1891 edition.
- ^ Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVII, p. 504. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.
- ^ Cleveland Amory, Who Killed Society?, pp. 432-433. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960.
