Henry William Palfrey initially worked for the counting houses of William Simpson and the House of Chew & Relf in New Orleans. In 1820 he set up the merchant and cotton factor firm of Taylor and Palfrey. He served as American Commissioner to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. He died en route to New Orleans in 1866 when his ship, The Evening Star, sank in a storm. Originally, the memorial was erected in the Girod Street Cemetery will the burials of other relatives. Once the closing of Girod became evident, they were relocated to Metairie Cemetery.

THE FALL OF THE EVENING STAR:
Early on the morning of October 3rd, 1866, the paddle-wheel steamer, Evening Star, enroute from New York City to New Orleans, went down in a ferocious hurricane off the Atlantic Coast. At the time, it was the biggest marine disaster in America's history. Of the 278 passengers and crew that shipped with her, only 17 survived. The passengers included an incredible mix of Civil War veterans, business men, families, circus performers, magicians, entertainers, and a full French opera and ballet troupe.

This is a story of tremendous courage and bravery in the face of terrible odds. The newspaper accounts are hair-raising and one wonders how anyone at all survived the disaster. The storm arose suddenly on the 2nd of October and by six o'clock the next morning the ship gave a sudden lurch and quickly sank, having battled the storm for over fourteen hours. She was 180 miles east of Tybee Island, deep in the Gulf Stream.

Earlier, when it became obvious that the ship couldn't be saved, the Purser, Ellery S. Allen, had given all the life-preservers to the ladies. The Evening Star, much like the Titanic forty-six years later, was woefully unprepared for a sudden disaster of this magnitude. Beside the shortage of life-preservers, she carried only six metallic life-boats, capable of carrying approximately ten people per boat. One of them capsized immediately when the crew tried launching it before the ship sank, tossing the women into the frenzied sea. The other boats, while free of their davits and fastenings, quickly filled with water and turned turtle when the Evening Star went down. Three of these were only found later, by accident, floating among the spars and flying driftwood which were being hurled about in all directions by the wind and the waves. Many of the passengers and crew, including the Captain, William Knapp and New Orleans fame architect James Gallier, were killed by flying driftwood, while others succumbed to exhaustion and exposure and simply slipped beneath the waves.