Henry Straus was born in Steinach, Bavaria, Germany. His family emigrated to America in 1839 and settled in Baltimore, Maryland. Soon after arriving in Baltimore he married Wilhelmina Marcus, a lifelong union that produced five children.

In the 1840s Henry with his younger brother Levi established the H. Straus & Brother Retail & Wholesale Grocery Company. Near the end of the Civil War the Straus brothers passed their grocery business down to Henry's children and opened a malt house. The malting company grew quickly and soon they were supplying a large share of the Baltimore breweries. After the Panic of 1873 the brothers had many outstanding bills for malt sold on credit that were going unpaid.

One of these debtors was the Darley Park Brewery on Harford Road, which had gone into receivership after the death of its owner Conrad Siegmann. The brothers took over the brewery and ran it for a profit and gradually made it central to their business interests, which grew to be many. Henry eventually became director of the German Bank of Baltimore, and treasurer of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

It was to the latter organization which he bequeathed the bulk of his estate upon his death on November 25th of 1881. The brewery he rescued from bankruptcy eventually went on to become a part of the Gottlieb Bauernschmidt Straus conglomerate and was closed in 1912.

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