to charities including: Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center (home of Oscar the cat, noted for his purported ability to predict imminent death), Beneficent Congregational Church, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Rhode Island Historical Society, Roanoke College, and Tabor College in Iowa. Throughout his life, Steere had been active as a member of the Franklin Society of the Rhode Island Historical Society and as a trustee of Rhode Island Hospital. Steere built Beneficent Congregational Church as a memorial to his father with a donation of $30,000. A descendant of Arthur Steere, one of Steere's devisees currently runs the Henry J. Steere Orchards in Greenville, Rhode Island. References John Steere Family Album, (Chepachet: Steere Family Association, 1981). James Pierce Root, Steere Genealogy: A Record of the Descendants of John Steere, who Settled in Providence, Rhode Island, about the year 1660, (Providence: Riverside Press, 1890). (created and funded by Henry J. Steere's) The Providence Journal, "The Will of Mr. Henry J. Steere in Detail," November 1, 1889, pg. 3. The Providence Journal, "Obituary: Henry J. Steere," October 29, 1889, pg. 8. External links Steere House Steere's Waskuck Mill American Civil War industrialists American chief executives of financial services companies American bankers American financiers Businesspeople from Providence, Rhode Island American Congregationalists 1830 births 1889 deaths Burials at North Burying Ground (Providence) 19th-century American philanthropists