The Ohio Historical Society staff is excited, and rightfully so, about the tomorrow’s unveiling of a newly polished historical gem.
Starting Saturday, visitors to Ulysses S. Grant’s boyhood home in Georgetown, near the Ohio River, will get a clearer picture than ever before of the formative years of the Civil War military genius and president who led the country through the Reconstruction era.
The Grant house has been closed for just over a year while undergoing a $1.4 million restoration.
Grant was born in 1822 in Point Pleasant, about a half-hour southeast of Cincinnati, but his parents, Jesse and Hanna, built the house and tannery in Georgetown when he was 1. (His given name, by the way, was Hiram Ulysses Grant; it was only when he was accepted into West Point military academy that a bureaucratic error changed his name to Ulysses S. Grant.) Grant lived in the modest brick house with his parents and four siblings from 1823 to 1839, when he left for West Point.
Ulysses spent his time working in his father’s tannery, attending nearby “subscription” schools (this was before public schools were widespread) and working with horses, his passion.
According to the Ohio Historical Society, the Grant family sold the house in the 1840s, and several owners over the next century made changes, including adding a porch and a conservatory, and then sectioning it into apartments. By the 1960s, it was facing demolition, but a couple bought it in 1977 and threw a lot of energy into opening it up for visitors and getting it registered as a National Historic Landmark. Judy Ruthven and her husband, famous wildlife artist John Ruthven, donated the house to the state in 2002.
The society’s goal was to turn back the clock to 1839. The fireplace mantels and doors were restored to original condition. Historians added period-reproduction wallpaper and window and floor coverings. The society supplemented what was left of the original furniture with some appropriate period pieces.
Just as important as the physical restoration is the scholarly update. Deeper research was conducted on the family and will be used to enrich visitors’ experience. For example, Jesse Grant, his father, wasn’t just a tanner, as the old thinking went. He was an audacious entrepreneur who involved himself a little of everything — selling insurance, working as a general contractor, owning a livery stable — and was Georgetown’s mayor by the time Ulysses left home.
The Civil War’s sesquicentennial started in 2011 and runs through 2015, making this the perfect time to focus on Ohio’s most illustrious figure from that era. The rededication ceremony will occur at the Grant house between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. tomorrow, and then move to the town’s Gaslight Theater at 2:30 p.m., with Civil War-era live music and a talk by Ed Bearss, author and former chief historian of the National Park Service. For information or to purchase tickets for the Bearss program, visit www.usgrantboyhoodhome.org or call 937-378-3087.