page_title: Jesse Root Grant
section_title: Father
hierarchical_section_title: Jesse Root Grant / Family and community life / Father
caption_attribution_description: English: Front and western side of the Grant Boyhood Home, located at 219 E. Grant Avenue in Georgetown, Ohio, United States. Built in 1823 and the childhood home of President Ulysses S. Grant, it has been declared a National Historic Landmark. When the photo was taken, it was undergoing reconstruction.
context_page_description: Jesse Root Grant was a farmer, tanner and successful leather merchant who owned tanneries and leather goods shops in several different states throughout his adult life. He is best known as the father of Ulysses S. Grant and the one who introduced Ulysses to military life at West Point. Jesse was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and was one of seven children. He was a self-made man who rose from poverty to become a somewhat wealthy merchant.
  At age five, Jesse's family moved to Ohio and settled in the Ohio River Valley. Unable to support all his children Jesse's father arranged for his apprenticeship at farms and tanneries during his youth. Jesse married Hannah Simpson Grant and they became the parents of three boys and three girls, with Ulysses being their oldest. Raised in a poor family that was forced to split up and having to work at an early age, Jesse persistently encouraged his sons in the ways of education, industry and hard work, his methods sometimes testing his father-son relationship with Ulysses. As a young man he worked for and came to know Owen Brown and soon acquired strong abolitionist sympathies.
context_section_description: Less than a year after Jesse and Hannah were married they became the parents of their first son, whose name would become Hiram Ulysses Grant. Jesse's first born son was met with much expectation and family fanfare. Family tradition as the Grant family observed it held that the naming of a first born son was a significant undertaking and something that was given much consideration. Members among the immediate Grant and Simpson families were all hoping for their own personal favorite names for the infant son. Subsequently, several weeks after the child's birth Jesse and Hannah still had not settled on a name. After mounting inquiries from friends and neighbors about the name for the boy, members of the Grant and Simpson family finally gathered at the Simpson family home to decide on a name. The prospective names were placed in a hat, a process which Hannah expressed reservation for, deeming it uncivilized. However, faced with the prospect of returning home without a name for the baby she finally consented. Jesse and Grandmother Simpson cast ballots for Ulysses, which was taken from a novel in François Fénelon's novel, Telemachus, lent to her by Jesse, and poem. Grandfather Simpson, out of respect for an honored ancestor, also cast a ballot for Hiram. Six ballots in all were cast, where the name 'Ulysses', was drawn by Hannah's youngest sister, Anne. Wanting also to honor the Simpson family, Jesse at this time declared that his son's name would be  Hiram Ulysses Grant, which the infant was Christened with and became his formal and legal name. Jesse, however, would always refer to his son as Ulysses, often referring to him as "my Ulysses". It is generally accepted among historians that Hannah and Jesse loved and took much pride in their children and their accomplishments.
  Jesse placed his eldest son, 'Hiram Ulysses', in a local one room school house in Georgetown. Later he would send Ulysses to boarding school across the river in Maysville, Kentucky, and to another in Ripley, Ohio, but to Jesse's disappointment these prospects never materialized into anything that justified his investment.
  At an early age Jesse prevailed on his son to work at his tannery, but it wasn't long before Ulysses expressed a strong dislike for the practice. Not wanting to force his son into such labor Jesse instead gave the young Ulysses other responsibilities, driving and transporting wagon loads of bark, supplies and goods to and from the tannery. As Ulysses showed a great ability to ride and manage horses, Jesse put this talent to use and one day offered Ulysses the job of driving a wagon and team of horses, 40 miles away to Cincinnati, picking up passengers and returning home. Before long he would often send his son on other business related journeys, transporting goods and people, on a regular basis.
  Jesse became very proud of his eldest son and his ability as he came of age, often telling stories about and referring to him as "my Ulysses". As the independent minded Ulysses became of age, however, their paternal relationship would be put through various trials. In 1838 Jesse enrolled Ulysses in abolitionist John Rankin's academy during the winter period. Always striving to secure good education for his sons, Jesse made arrangements for Ulysses to be nominated and enrolled in the U.S. military academy at West Point without Ulysses' knowledge. Through his political associations Jesse was referred to a former friend, Thomas Hamer, who was also a prominent lawyer and was being considered by the Democrats as a possible candidate for the Presidency, asking him to nominate Ulysses. However, because of Jesse's past indifference with Hamer over Jacksonian politics, he attempted to bypass him and instead wrote to Thomas Morris, senator from Ohio, asking that he nominate Ulysses. Morris wrote back on February 19, 1839, explaining that Hamer was the only one authorized to submit a nomination from Brown County  Here Jesse found himself in an awkward position, as a few years earlier he had criticized Hamer in the Castigator over a disagreement involving Andr
caption: Grant household in Georgetown
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A540", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2012:08:13 18:11:18", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5311", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:08:13 18:11:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:08:13 18:11:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "287/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "11/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "80", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2816", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2112", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2816", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2112", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2824", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "112640/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2112000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}