Born July 27, 1810, benefactor of Watertown Public Library in memory of his father, Walter Hunnewell, town physician. Horatio Hollis Hunnewell (July 27, 1810 - May 20, 1902), was a banker, railroad financier, philanthropist, amateur botanist, and one of the most prominent horticulturists in America in the nineteenth century. Horatio Hunnewell was a partner in the private banking firm of Welles & Co. Paris, France controlled by his in-laws which specialized in trade finance between the two countries. Both the town of Wellesley (founded 1881) and Wellesley College (chartered 1870) are named for Hunnewell's estate, "Wellesley", which he named for the family of his wife, Isabella Pratt Welles. Practicing horticulture for nearly six decades on his estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts, he was perhaps the first person to cultivate and popularize rhododendrons in the United States. Hunnewell was a director of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1862-1871, railroad entrepreneur in Kansas beginning in the 1860s, and president of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad and Kansas City, Lawrence and Southern Railroad around 1880. He died on May 20, 1902 from a heart attack at age 91. Hunnewell was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, among his family.
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