BIG CITY GETAWAY

Frontline Eurosports presents

BIG CITY GETAWAY

daytrip ideas to get out of the daily grind

GRANT’S COTTAGE 1000 MT MCGREGOR RD, GANSEVOORT, NY 12831

518-584-4353 • WWW.GRANTCOTTAGE.ORG

While we were heading up to this year’s Americade, in Lake George, New York, we came across an historic site unknown to us. How something as wonderful and signi cant as this had eluded us for all these years was beyond us, but on a day-trip from the rally we rode up Mount McGregor, one of the peaks of the Palmerton Range. The road wound up to the summit, passing a large complex, once an asylum and then a penitentiary, and now a giant white ghost atop the mountain. U.S. Grant Fun Fact… Ulysses wasn’t his real rst name. Hiram Ulysses Grant was stuck with the name Ulysses S. Grant due to a mistake by a benefactor on his application form to West Point. And as with President Harry S. Truman, the middle initial “S” doesn’t stand for anything. But having the name “U.S.” Grant him the nickname “Sam,” as in Uncle Sam, among soldiers. Just a stone’s throw away we found what we had ridden there for - a mountain cabin that was bult by Joseph Drexel, a philanthropist and banker who also had a resort hotel, at one time, atop the mountain. Drexel was close friends with President Ulysses S. Grant. When the past president and son lost all their money to a Ponzi-style swindle and he was dying of throat cancer, Drexel offered Grant a place to recover and nish his memoirs. Ulysses S. Grant moved to the Cottage on June 16, 1885. With the love and support of his family and his publisher Mark Twain he completed the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant only days before his death on July 23, 1885. This superb publication of this two-volume work ensured his family’s nancial security and gave the world one of the most critically acclaimed memoirs by a U.S. president or historic military gure. This autobiography is considered among the best, if not the best, written by a President. U.S. Grant Fun Fact… Grant was the youngest president elected at the time. The former general was 46 years old and never held elected of ce when he took of ce in 1869. His inexperience would be a factor in a tumultuous eight-year term amid Reconstruction.

Remarkably the cottage remains essentially the same as during the Grant family’s stay. The operations manager, Ben Kemp, graciously gave us a small private tour of the cottage. This was more than just amazing – it is almost a time capsule of the last days of the man who saved the Union and then the nation once again during the Presidential election crisis of 1876. In the downstairs of the cottage, we could see the original furnishings, decorations, and personal items belonging to Grant, including the bed where he died. One of the most amazing things we have ever seen is the oral arrangements that remain from Grant’s August 4th funeral. You can still see the colors in some of the arrangement. As for a real sense of history and time it is hard to nd anything to compare to this. U.S. Grant Fun Fact… Grant tried to annex the Dominican Republic to the U.S. The President wanted the Dominican Republic in the Union for several reasons: as a military base, as a sanctuary for freed slaves, and as a market for U.S. goods. Outside you will nd a short path to the Eastern Outlook, which commands a spectacular view of the Hudson Valley, from the Adirondacks in the north, the Green Mountains of Vermont to the east, and the Catskills to the south. It was here that President Grant took his last look at the valley and then stumbled and fell as he went to return to the cottage. Cancer had nally caught the 18th President and leader of the Union forces. He died three days later. The cottage is a great day trip from Americade or anytime you are riding in the Adirondack region. One Last U.S. Grant Fun Fact… OK, so who is really buried in Grant’s tomb? That’s a trick question. Grant and his wife, Julia, are interred inside the tomb, but their crypt is above ground. It is the largest mausoleum in North America. ,