Leland Stanford, Jr.

Infobox Person
name = Leland Stanford Jr.


image_size = 150px
caption = Leland Stanford (1872)
birth_date = birth date|1868|05|14
birth_place = Sacramento, California
death_date = death date and age|1884|03|13|1868|05|14
death_place = Florence, Italy
other_names = Leland DeWitt Stanford
known_for = Namesake of Stanford University
occupation =

Leland Stanford Jr. (May 14, 1868 in Sacramento, California–March 13, 1884 in Florence, Italy), Leland DeWitt Stanford until age nine, was the only child of Governor Leland Stanford of California and his wife Jane Stanford and is the namesake of Stanford University in the United States.

Leland Jr. caught typhoid two months before his sixteenth birthday, while on a Grand Tour of Europe. He originally fell ill in what was then Constantinople; though his family rushed him to Florence, Italy, for medical treatment under Catholic nuns, he died shortly thereafter. After they returned to the United States, his parents devoted their fortune to a memorial, Leland Stanford Junior University, in his honor. It is said that Leland Stanford Sr. was told in a dream that the "children of California will now be his children" and that was why he started the university. He is interred beside his parents at the Stanford family mausoleum on the Stanford campus.

External links

* [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2003/julaug/features/junior.html Johnston, Theresa, "About a Boy," "Stanford", July-August 2003]