The History of U.S. Grant Cottage

[Music] you know most people realize that ulysses s grant was Lincoln's favorite general and the general who saved the Union by winning the Civil War some people know that grant was a two-term president who did more for African and Native Americans than any president up until Lyndon Baines Johnson a hundred years later but very few people around the country know that ulysses s grant spent the last six weeks of his life in this little cottage in the southern Adirondacks in Saratoga County completing his best-selling Civil War memoirs and in many ways this is the most heartwarming part of the ulysses s great story and you're going to hear it now so grant worked with Mark Twain who had just published Huckleberry Finn to chronicle his exploits in the Mexican and Civil Wars grant was at a race against time to complete the second of two volumes before either the Grim Reaper or the bill collector came calling ulysses s grant was broke because his son got him into a Ponzi scheme and he lost all his money grant cottage reenactor Steve trim describes the early process of drafting his memoirs before he came to Wilton the beginning before the cancer really took hold it cancer of the mouth the throat the tongue I could dictate and I essentially I sat and told stories about my my family history the Mexican War the Civil War and the stenographer wrote everything down I just spun the stories and had no particular plan at all after the general died the family was kind enough to leave behind some of general Grant's personal items so we have here in this cabinet we have his toothbrush his moustache brush we have his socks we have his night shirts his shirts his robe some medical things down below medical items and then right here we have his top hat and as I told you earlier this is the top hat that he would wear when he was out on the porch and if you walked by he were lucky enough to walk by he would tip his hat to you so the memoirs were quite a large project to complete in a shorter period of time by the time grant arrived at the cottage he was most of the way through the second volume of the work he received a visitor a couple of weeks after arriving here at Mount McGregor a man by the name of Samuel Clemens he's better known as the author Mark Twain Mark Twain was grants publisher and he's going to arrive here and meet with grant and check on the progress of the book because he is already selling it door-to-door around the country and for grant the most important thing was to find out if the book was going to be a success and he asked Twain and Twain was able to tell him at that moment something that grant desperately needed to hear and that was that he had already pre-sold a hundred thousand copies of his book so at least grant knew at that moment that all the work he had put in all the suffering had gone through was going to pay off 1885 was a terrible year for the grant family and longtime volunteers Steve trim tells us why grant came to mount McGregor to finish his memoirs despite suffering from terminal throat cancer my wife and I were living in New York City that is where I was diagnosed with cancer by the spring of 1885 as I said most of the book was done but not quite and my doctors believed that if I stayed in the city there was a heat wave coming that the conditions would so aggravate my medical condition that I might be pushed right over the edge so they looked around for a place with fresh clean unpolluted air the theory being if they could relocate me the new environment would prolong my life and I would have time to finish the book my friend Joseph Drexel owned a cottage on Mount McGregor in the town of Wilton New York he offered the cottage to the family and to me for free we get a lot of school groups that come through Grant cottage it's wonderful kids are great as soon as we walk in this room though the first thing I say ask them is what's missing and of course what's missing if this is grants bedroom is a bed now the reason why grant is did not sleep in a bed is because the tumor in his throat was so large that if he had laid down on a bed he could have choked to death so unfortunately the only way he could sleep at night was sitting in these two big chairs here these were the only two pieces of furniture that the family brought up from New York City in fact when he was in the Train he sat in these chairs so what night he would sit in one of the chairs with his feet propped up in the other chair now I've been told that after the cottage opened up five years after he died the only people allowed to touch the chairs were Civil War veterans and they were allowed to walk by the chairs and put their hands against the edge of the chair the top of the chair where his head probably slept at night here we are in the parlor of the cottage this is where when grant was feeling up to it he would receive visitors and of course many many people came to try to visit with the general in his final days and a few were able to one of the really interesting visitors that grant had was Simon Buckner Buckner had known grant from an early age they had gone to West Point together military school and so they knew each other for a very long time but when the Civil War came around Buckner chose the Confederacy and he actually had to face Grant on the battlefield at Fort Donelson in 1862 and actually had to surrender to him so grant was thrilled to have this former enemy that was come and and visit with him and give him the support of the Confederate Veterans Grant died just days after completing his memoirs on mom McGregor and this image is the last photograph ever taken of the American icon on the porch of what was then called Drexel cottage just as his father slipped away grants oldest son Fred walked over to the mantel clock just above the fireplace here and he stopped it at 8:08 in the morning it's a symbol of the time capsule here at Grant cottage that time stands still by the time grant arrived at the cottage his voice had mostly given out in certain days he could speak other days he couldn't he had to resort to using this pad and pencil to write notes to communicate this was his form of communication they he kind of jokingly called it his pencil talk this is what he had to do use these pads and pencil to get through the day and to work on his memoirs he also had to resort to writing when he couldn't speak or dictate [Music] the item on top of this case really tells a big story this is Grant's original medicine in this large bottle and this was brought with the patient from New York City and it was a fairly new medication at the time grant needed some pain relief but he needed to stay away from the heavier medicines during the day so he could continue to work on his book that was still the most important thing at the end of his life is to finish that book and so they doctors the doctors tried cocaine water and they would swab the back of his throat with cocaine to give him some topical pain relief just to get through the days I was in physical pain but emotionally I'm not sure I've ever been happier I'm July 16th after weeks of struggling to finish his book grant finally put his pencil down and said there's nothing more I can do to it now and from that point grant started to fail health-wise and the family wanted him to be comfortable so his son saw to the bringing down of a bed an interesting artifact in its own right it's a folding bed but this is it was placed here in the parlor because the breezes were better it's getting hotter it's July now and so the family placed their patriarch the general laid on this bed he hadn't laid down flat in months he had been sleeping in the chairs so this must have been a great relief to him and to know that his book was done but more than anything the greatest relief was just to be surrounded by his loving family here in the cottage and so grant slowly slipped away one of his final sentiments really speaks to the kind of man he was he said to his family he expressed a whispered in some of the final words he was able to speak were I don't want anyone to be concerned on my account he was he was looking at the anxious faces of his family surrounding him and all he could think of was their comfort welcome to what I call the creepy part of the tour and that's because we have dead flowers here but in 1885 these floral arrangements were absolutely beautiful and absolutely stunning I am guessing many people sent flowers here that didn't quite last like these flowers but this set of flowers was sent by the Leland Stanford family Leland Stanford and his wife were friends with the grant Leland Stanford also founded Stanford University and was governor of California now over on the table here in the middle we have a floral arrangement sent by the local GA R which stood for Grand Army of the Republic these flowers this floral arrangement stood at the head of Grant's coffin he was laid out in front of the fireplace which we'll see in a minute and people would file in one door in the living room here and file out the other door and view the body and of course we have a sketch of these flowers being at the head of his coffin now when the last civil war veteran died I believe in 1956 that was the end of the GA are the southern soldiers had their own group called the Confederate soldiers Association and the same thing with them when they died when the last Confederate soldier died former Confederate soldier died that was the end of their organization and it also became the beginning of veteran groups like the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars the VFW when Grant died on Mount McGregor there was a funeral at the cottage and then the Train that brought him here took him back down the mountain through Saratoga Springs and to Albany here's an image from early August 18 five when the generals coffin traveled up State Street Hill in Albany where a viewing of the body would occur in the newly built State Capitol building then the Train took grant down to New York City where on the 8th of August the biggest procession in American history was staged over a seven mile section of Broadway to the East River where we now have grant's tomb after US grant left Mount McGregor the cottage became a hallowed site where groups of Civil War veterans would pitch tents to protect the place where the great man died from souvenir hunters and looters in 1897 the 100-room Balmoral Hotel at the summit was destroyed by fire and many thought that was the last chapter to be written in the history of the mountain but in 1913 the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company purchased 1200 acres of Mount McGregor to build a tuberculosis sanitarium for up to 350 patients in 1945 New York State purchased the facility for Metropolitan to take care of convalescing veterans returning from the battles of World War two in 1960 the state converted many of the buildings to house the developmentally disabled and then in 1976 the complex was converted into a prison called the Mount McGregor Correctional Facility in July of 2014 Mount McGregor prison was closed and was put up for sale and while some interest has been shown in privatizing the 325 acre prison property its future remains uncertain what is certain is that a dedicated collective of volunteers just like me have committed ourselves to preserving and enhancing the memory of the man who saved the Union who became a two-term president and who conquered throat cancer and poverty by writing an autobiography that still in print a hundred and thirty-five years later yes we have quite a story to tell here at Grant cottage and we need your help to keep telling it thank you [Music] the friendship on the day arrived let each one Hey singing everybody come on wait Johnny comes [Music] when Johnny comes marching home again [Music] Oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh [Music] you

Channel: Ulysses S. Grant Cottage Historic Site

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Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020