Quincy Adams Shaw (February 8, 1825 – June 12, 1908) was a Boston Brahmin investor and business magnate who was the first president of Calumet and Hecla Mining Company.

[2] George Parkman (February 19, 1790 – November 23, 1849), a wealthy Boston physician who was murdered in 1849 in a gruesome and highly publicized case, was Elizabeth's brother.

Parkman's 1849 book, The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life, is dedicated to Shaw.

[4][5] The latter was a colonel in the Volunteer Army of the United States during the American Civil War, and commander of the all-black 54th Regiment.

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed in action during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863.