Henry Shelton Sanford (June 15, 1823 – May 21, 1891) was an American diplomat and businessman from Connecticut who served as United States Minister to Belgium from 1861 to 1869.

He was the son of Nancy Bateman Shelton (1800–1880) and Nehemiah Curtis Sanford,[1][2] who made his fortune manufacturing brass tacks and served in the Connecticut Senate for the 16th District.

He was also educated at Heidelberg University, Germany from which institution he received the degree of Doctor of Canon and Civil Law or J.U.D.

In addition, Sanford co-ordinated northern secret service operations during the Civil War, arranged for the purchase of war materials for the Union, and delivered a message from Secretary of State William H. Seward to Giuseppe Garibaldi, offering the Italian patriot a Union command.

The St. Augustine grove was later developed as a real estate subdivision in the northern part of the city's historic Lincolnville neighborhood.

[2][4][8] He founded an orange plantation at Lake Monroe that offered some promise to revive his flagging fortunes, but it did not prove profitable in the long term.

In fact he poured quite a bit of precious capital into land speculation and town building in Florida in the hopes of turning around a family economy that spent far more than it took in, but with no success.

His wife was so disgruntled with his booster schemes that she lamented in a letter to her husband that Florida was "a vampire that... sucked the repose & the beauty & the dignity & cheerfulness out of our lives.

In 1876 he was named acting Delegate of the American Geographical Society to a conference called by King Leopold II of Belgium to organize the International African Association with the purpose of opening up equatorial Africa to civilizing influences.

Leopold II used Sanford to convince Henry Morton Stanley to explore the Congo basin for Belgium in 1878.

Sanford then founded the "Tropical Garden" research station which conducted remarkable experiments in plant and fruit growth.