Shaw (Pauline Agassiz) is born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

The daughter of Louis and Cécile (Braun) Agassiz, Pauline Agassiz Shaw comes to Boston in 1850 after the death of her mother to live with their father and stepmother at 43 – 45 West Street. She marries Quincy Shaw in 1860,* and goes on to found and support a number of innovative schools and become one of Boston’s foremost philanthropists. Shaw advises her own children “to spend for progress rather than pleasure or for mere temporary amusement.” She dies in Nahant on February 10, 1917, and is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery.