[2] Shaw worked as a farmer, coal miner, explorer, and auctioneer before he began making a living as a journalist and writer in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1858.

Under the pseudonym "Josh Billings" he wrote in an informal voice full of the slang of the day, with often eccentric phonetic spelling, dispensing wit and folksy common-sense wisdom.

According to Steinbeck's homage, Billings died in the Hotel del Monte in Monterey after which his body was delivered for burial preparation by the local constable to the town's only doctor, who also doubled as an amateur mortician.

Some local men, realizing the disgrace this could bring to Monterey—a town proud of its literary heritage—were able to stop the boy as he was preparing to row out to sea, retrieved the tripas and forced the doctor to give Billings' organs a proper burial befitting a great author.

Billings' daughter Grace Shaw Duff donated money for the building of Wilhenford Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, which opened in 1910.

[13] His saying, "In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy... to wit the wag of a dog's tail" appears at the beginning of the Disney film Lady and the Tramp.

[14] The phrase, "Love is like measles... the later in life it occurs, the tougher it gets," was quoted as being Josh Billings' in Jan Karon's book, A Light in the Window.