Horace Chapin Henry Horace Chapin Henry ( October 6 , 1844 – June 28 , 1928 ) was an early Seattle businessman and founder of the Henry Art Gallery and Firland Tuberculosis Hospital . Biography . He was born at the Henry House in Bennington , Vermont in October , 1844 . He left Norwich Military School ( better known as Norwich University ) at age 18 , serving as a First Sergeant , 14th Vermont Infantry in the Second Vermont Brigade which was in the center of the line repulsing Pickett ' s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War . After the war he was a partner in Henry & Balch working on railroad construction in the Midwest . He moved to Seattle in 1890 to work on the Northern Pacific Railroad ' s belt line around Lake Washington , and later the Great Northern Railway ' s route from Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains to Everett on Puget Sound . In 1906 he won a $ 20 million contract to build 450 miles of the Chicago , Milwaukee & St . Paul line from the Montana - Idaho border across Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle , which was completed in 1909 . Henry ' s 1901 home in the Harvard - Belmont District on Seattle ' s Capitol Hill was the first of many Victorian , Neo - classical , Colonial Revival , and Tudor Revival houses built in the early part of the century . It is noteworthy for having been built with a five - car garage at a time when automobiles were a novelty in Seattle . He was president of the Metropolitan Bank and National Bank of Commerce in Seattle , and formed Pacific Creosoting Company on Bainbridge Island in 1906 . A tanker which supplied creosote from Europe to this plant was named the " H . C . Henry " and was sunk by a German submarine in World War I on September 28 , 1915 . In 1911 , after the death of a son to tuberculosis , he donated land and funds to open Henry Sanatorium in Seattle , later renamed Firland Tuberculosis Hospital . He was an investor in , and vice president of , the Metropolitan Building Company , which developed the Metropolitan Tract in Seattle . The 11 - story Henry Building there was named for him . For his personal contributions and efforts to collect funds for the Fatherless Children of France , a charity for wartime orphans , he was awarded the Legion of Honor medal in 1920 . He donated his art collection , which he formerly kept at his home and opened to the public for display , to the University of Washington in 1926 and donated the funds to build a new gallery to house the collection , which was to be the Henry Art Gallery . Henry died in his sleep in his Seattle home on June 28 , 1928 and is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle . After his life . In 1934 , his sons donated land ( including his original house ) to the city for construction of a library . This was to become the Susan J . Henry branch of the Seattle Public Library , named for his wife . The branch was rebuilt and renamed in 2003 to the Capitol Hill Branch . The Snoqualmie Pass route was converted to a Rail Trail after Chicago , Milwaukee & St . Paul went bankrupt in 1980 . See Iron Horse State Park . Eagle Harbor was designated a superfund site in 1987 due to pollution from the creosote plant . See Pacific Creosoting Company .