Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-04
HARDSCRABBLE
Log Cabin Built by Gen. Grant
Near St. Louis.
Steps Being Taken to Preserve it as
Memorial
Exposition Director Buys it and Will
Reerect it on Fair Grounds.

the historic attractions at the Louisi-
ana Purchase exposition will be Hard.
scrabble House, the log cabin built
and occupied by General Grant, which
has lately t~en purchased by c. F.
Blanke, an exposition director, and
will be regretted in Forest park, where
ii is planned to have it remain as a
permanent memorial to the famous
soldier, particularly recalling the dark
days when he was struggling against
adverse fate to make living for him
self and family as Missouri farmer.
No more striking will the contrast
be between this humble little cabin of
logs hewn by his own hands and the
towering and gorgeous palaces of the
worlds fair than was the contrast in
the conditions Of the man who within
a decade from the time he left Hard
scrabble cabin well nigh penniless and
q recognized failure as farmer
stepped into the White House at Wash
ington as the chief executive of the
nation. But some tremendously sig
niflcant events occurred in that decade
in which the one time poor and al
most Respondent farmer played con-
spicuous part. OF these events all the
world knows. Perhaps it does not
know 80 much Of the long, tedious,
heartsickening years Of struggle which
this primitive log structure represents.
transferable House," which Ulys-
ses s. Grant chose to call the first home
Of his own, was built by his own hands
in the fall of 1855 on a portion Of the
estate Of Colonel Frederick Dent, bis
father.in-law, out on the old Gravois
road nine miles from this city, where
it stood for nearly half a century. The
place was appropriately named, for
here young Grant, who had just re-
signed from the army after having
graduated from West Point and fought
bravely through the Mexican war, had
family. A few years before his resig-
nation, then a gallant young lieutenant
stationed at Jefferson barracks, he had
| courted and married the daughter Of
| Colonel Dent. Later he was trans
ferred to Sacket's Harbor, N. Y, SUBJ
sequently to Fort Vancouver, on the
northern Pacific coast, and thence to
Fort Humboldt, Cal, 200 miles above
San Francisco. His pay as an army
officer was small, much less than army
officers of the same rank receive to-
| day. He could not take his wife and
little son, now General Frederick Dent
Grant, around the Horn to his distant
post, and in those days a journey
across the continent was for them out
Of the question. He sent Mrs. Grant
and the child to his fathers home in
Ohio, and shortly after his departure a
second son was born. Later Mrs. Grant
and her children went to live at White
Haven, her birthplace, the home Of
Colonel Dent.
But the young soldier loved his wife
and babies, and the separation from
them was uncomfortable. So while sta
toned on the Pacific coast in April,
1854, on the very day he had received
a captains commission, he rendered
his resignation from the army. to take
effect the last day of the July follow
ing. At the expiration of that time he
started east, going first to his early
home in Ohio, where he seems to have
been received rather coldly by his ia
Their, who is said to have been deeply
Inundated by his eldest sons retire.
ment from the military service, in
which he had expected him to win glo-
ry and renown. These came later. But
that is another story.
After a brief visit with his parents
| Captain Grant came to st. Louis and
rejoined his family at Colonel Dents
home. Thirty-two years of age, with a
wife and two children, one Of whom he
had never seen he had abandoned the
military profession and its pay and
was facing the future without cent
Thus Captain Grant began the es-
Enlistment of home, Colonel Dent
setting aside tract Of about eighty
acres on the old home farm for his use.
He did not give Grant a deed to the
land. He simply, for Julia's sake, gave
the Mexican war veteran permission
to "take it and do what you can with
it." Colonel Dent like Jesse Grant.
Tas not well pleased with the man
who had married his daughter. The
colonel was southerner, Of considera-
BILE means, successful, substantial
citizen. Old neighbors Of the Dents
still recall uncomplimentary language
used by Colonel Dent in abiding to
Captain Grant.
But this did not discourage the ex-
captain. 1t was sufficient that his wife
loved him and approved of his course
and cheerfully shared his hardships.
That winter and the next spring and
summer he cut wood, plowed for
wheat, hoed corn, bound wheat behind
the keen cradles of his father-in-law's
darby slaves and was a farmers man
Of all work. He had worked on a