Ulysses S. Grant Cottage | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Chalet |
Architectural style | Bavarian |
Location | Elberon, New Jersey |
Address | 995 Ocean Avenue |
Town or city | Long Branch, New Jersey |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 40°16′17″N73°59′08″W / 40.27139°N 73.98556°W |
Demolished | 1963 |
The Ulysses S. Grant Cottage was the Summer White House of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in Elberon, a part of Long Branch, New Jersey. Grant vacationed at the cottage starting in the summer of 1867, and thereafter spent three months of every summer there until 1885. He held cabinet meetings and composed parts of his memoirs at the cottage. The presence of Grant and the cottage helped popularize Elberon as a place for the elite to meet; a status that only faded when the railroad came to town and it became more accessible. The cottage was demolished in 1963 by its then owner, who did not possess the funds necessary to preserve the building. The site is today a grassy field.
Ulysses S. Grant received the cottage as a gift from wealthy acquaintances aligned with the Republican Party who had summer homes in Elberon, New Jersey. These homes, being within walking distance of each other, provided an atmosphere conducive to achieving a meeting of the minds as it pertained to the issues of the day. [1] The cottage was used by the Grant family for three months of every summer starting in 1867 and culminating in 1885, years after Grant had already been out of office. It was one of many Summer White Houses utilized by United States presidents during the summer months. Grant enjoyed staying there so much that he was criticized for spending too much time at the cottage. Referring to Long Branch, New Jersey, as the "summer capital", Grant presided over cabinet meetings at the cottage, and strategized the failed proposal to annex the Dominican Republic there. [2] He wrote much of his Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant at the cottage. While staying in Long Branch, Grant worshiped at the Church of the Presidents on Ocean Avenue. [2]
In 1941, the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Peace purchased the adjacent property and turned the entire seven acres into the Stella Maris Retreat Center. In 1963, having decided to improve the property but not possessing the requisite funds to restore the cottage, the Sisters decided to have the building razed. The complex closed in 2015. [2]
The cottage was located at 995 Ocean Avenue in Elberon, a part of Long Branch, on a plot of land fronting the Atlantic Ocean. [3] It was built as a chalet in the Bavarian style. It was bulldozed in 1963. [2] The site is currently a vacant grassy field bordered by a white picket fence. [2]
By choosing to spend his summers in Long Branch, Grant set the stage for the town to become a seaside resort for many years afterwards. [1] [3] He started a tradition for later U.S. presidents to also spend time in Long Branch. These included James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson. [2]
A statue of Grant and a commemorative plaque are featured on the boardwalk nearby. [2]
Ulysses S. Grant was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and briefly served as U.S. secretary of war. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the Justice Department and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction.
James Abram Garfield was an American politician who served as the 20th president of the United States from March 1881 until his assassination in September that year. A preacher, lawyer, and Civil War general, Garfield served nine terms in the United States House of Representatives and is the only sitting member of the House to be elected president. Before his candidacy for the presidency, he had been elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio General Assembly—a position he declined when he became president-elect.
Long Branch is a beachside city in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city's population was 31,667, an increase of 948 (+3.1%) from the 2010 census count of 30,719, which in turn reflected a decline of 621 (−2.0%) from the 31,340 counted in the 2000 census. As of the 2020 census, it was the 6th-most-populous municipality in Monmouth County and had the 74th-highest population of any municipality in New Jersey.
Ocean Grove is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) that is part of Neptune Township, in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It had a population of 3,057 at the 2020 United States census. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean's Jersey Shore, between Asbury Park to the north and Bradley Beach to the south. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Ocean Grove is noted for its abundant examples of Victorian architecture and the Great Auditorium, acclaimed as "the state’s most wondrous wooden structure, soaring and sweeping, alive with the sound of music".
Lucretia Garfield was the first lady of the United States from March to September 1881, as the wife of James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States.
The Jersey Shore, commonly referred to locally as simply the Shore, is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Geographically, the term encompasses about 141 miles (227 km) of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May Point in the south. The region includes Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, and Cape May counties, which are in the central and southern parts of the state. Located in the center of the Northeast Megalopolis, the northern half of the shore region is part of the New York metropolitan area, while the southern half of the shore region is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area, also known as the Delaware Valley. The Jersey Shore hosts the highest concentration of oceanside boardwalks in the United States.
The Whiskey Ring took place from 1871 to 1876 centering in St. Louis during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. The ring was an American scandal, broken in May 1875, involving the diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. Whiskey distillers bribed officials from the U. S. Department of the Treasury to increase profits and evade taxes. Grant's Justice Department prosecuted members of Grant's own Republican Party who were part of the Ring. The kingpin of the Whiskey Ring was the notorious General John McDonald, whom Grant had appointed Revenue Collector of Missouri District in 1869. Under the leadership of Grant's Secretary of Treasury, Benjamin Bristow, a reformer, the Ring was uncovered and broken up.
George Maxwell Robeson was an American politician and lawyer from New Jersey. A brigadier general in the New Jersey Militia during the American Civil War, he served as Secretary of the Navy, appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant, from 1869 to 1877. A member of the Republican Party, he also served two terms as a U.S. Representative for New Jersey from 1879 to 1883.
Elberon is an unincorporated community that is part of Long Branch in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The area is served as United States Postal Service ZIP code 07740.
The Church of the Presidents is a former Episcopal chapel on the Jersey Shore where seven United States presidents worshipped. It was visited by presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Woodrow Wilson. All except Grant were in office when they paid their visits to the church.
The Garfield Tea House in Long Branch, New Jersey, is the only remaining structure directly related to President James A. Garfield's final trip to the Jersey Shore. The Garfield Tea House was built from the railroad ties used to lay the emergency track that transported a dying President Garfield from the nearby Elberon train station to the oceanfront cottage where he died 12 days later.
Grant Cottage State Historic Site is an Adirondack mountain cottage on the slope of Mount McGregor in the town of Moreau, New York. Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, died of throat cancer at the cottage on July 23, 1885. The house was maintained as a shrine to U.S. Grant following his death by the Mount McGregor Memorial Association and a series of live-in caretakers. The building became a New York State Historic Site in 1957 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The Historic Site was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 2021.
James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 am on Saturday, July 2, 1881. He died in Elberon, New Jersey, two and a half months later on September 19, 1881. The shooting occurred less than four months into his term as president. Charles J. Guiteau was convicted of Garfield's murder and executed by hanging one year after the shooting.
The Cape May Historic District is an area of 380 acres (1.5 km2) with over 600 buildings in the resort town of Cape May, Cape May County, New Jersey. The city claims to be America's first seaside resort and has numerous buildings in the Late Victorian style, including the Eclectic, Stick, and Shingle styles, as well as the later Bungalow style, many with gingerbread trim. According to National Park Service architectural historian Carolyn Pitts, "Cape May has one of the largest collections of late 19th century frame buildings left in the United States... that give it a homogeneous architectural character, a kind of textbook of vernacular American building."
Tybee Island Strand Cottages Historic District, also known as The Strand, is a historic district on Tybee Island, Georgia including 18 cottages, walkways, landscape and other features that are largely unchanged since the historic era of Tybee Island as a coastal resort. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Seven Presidents Park is an oceanfront park in the city of Long Branch, New Jersey, USA, maintained by the Monmouth County Park System. It is named after U.S. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Woodrow Wilson, all of whom spent time in the area's resorts. President Grant declared Long Branch the nation's "Summer Capital" in 1869.
After eight years in the presidential office during Reconstruction, Ulysses S. Grant looked forward to retirement from public life. When his second term in office ended in March 1877, Grant had gained weight, while he desired to travel the world and visit his daughter in Scotland. Grant began his post-presidential life with a two-year tour that took him and his wife and entourage around the world.
Charles Gilbert Francklyn was an American capitalist and industrialist who was based in New York society during the Gilded Age.