|
Ulysses and Julia Dent Grant pose beside their summer cottage
in Long Branch, N.J. Julia’s father sits to the right.
Julia wrote in her memoirs that the
Grants, including their children and her father, rushed to Long Branch for
the summers as soon as Congress adjourned. She wrote that the cottage was
a “boon” to the weary president, who re-charged his batteries there
amid the resort’s “health-giving breezes and its wide and restful
piazzas.”
| The Grants received guests at
their cottage, attended balls at the nearby West End Hotel, swam
in the sea, and went on what Julia called “glorious drives on
that enchanting beach.” Perry wrote that Grant, during and after
his presidency, was known locally as the community’s “’first
citizen.’” Residents and tourists would stroll past the Ocean
Avenue cottage to catch a glimpse of Grant sitting with his wife
on their porch. |
Ulysses and Julia Dent Grant in Long Branch with their children
and servants. The Grants gathered for summer vacations at their
cottage.
|
Grant enjoyed playing poker with
friends every Friday night during the summer. Otherwise, his routine at
Long Branch included taking his carriage out twice a day, driving his
horses quickly along Ocean Avenue, returning from his morning drive to
have breakfast, and reading his mail on the veranda. On July 4, 1872, he
was at Long Branch “amidst cannons firing, bells ringing, and fireworks
going off.” Three summers later, the president also spent July 4
locally, visiting nearby Heightstown for the day, according to James
Heintze.
Jesse wrote in his memoirs that his
mother relaxed the most and was happiest as first lady at Long Branch, and
that his father also enjoyed his working vacations there. Jesse wrote that
his mother, after once being teased by the president about spending so
much time sitting on the porch, showed her physical fitness by suddenly
mimicking a Jesse routine - vaulting the veranda railing.
|
President and First Lady Grant in
1872 at their Long Branch cottage with their son Jesse. Jesse
recalled years later that his mother once jumped merrily over the
veranda railing.
|
Grant’s presence at Long
Branch injected thousands of dollars into the local economy each
day and set local trends. Once Grant started attending horse races
at the nearby Monmouth Park racetrack, which opened to
disappointingly small crowds in 1871, “the masses followed,”
according to Melissa Kozlowski. The racetrack owners, probably
aware of Grant’s normative effect (if Grant visited the new
racetrack, others would, too), installed a statue of Grant at the
front entrance. The racetrack has long since been demolished
without a trace, Kozlowski wrote.
Most Thursdays during their
summers by the beach, the Grants would take “delightful sails”
up to New York, Julia wrote. These sails continued after Grant’s
presidency, including in 1880, when the Grants were house-hunting
in New York City. The Grants would sail up to the city for a day
to see friends and political allies until the former president’s
financial collapse on Wall Street in 1884. |
It was from his Long Branch base that
the destitute public figure made his first appearance after the failure of
Wall Street investment firm Grant & Ward. Worried about how he would
be received after the much publicized failure, Grant traveled to nearby
Ocean Grove for an army chaplain convention, and was encouraged by his
warm welcome.
| It was also after his presidency
that Grant started attending services at a church that still
stands on Ocean Drive in Long Branch’s Elberon section,
according to the Long Branch Historical Museum Association. The
church was later named the Church of the Presidents, because Grant
and presidents Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and Wilson all
attended services there. President Garfield died in a cottage
across the street from the church after being shot in Washington,
D.C. in 1881. The Garfield site, like the Grant cottage itself, no
longer exists. In 1955, the church became the Long Branch
Historical Museum. An association is now working to renovate the
historic building. |
This rarely seen artifact, a porch
chair used by U.S. Grant at his cottage, was removed from storage
and photographed exclusively for this essay by Jim Foley of the
Long Branch Historical Museum Association. The association is
working to restore the community’s Church of the Presidents
building.
|
Long Branch factored into Grant’s
later life in other ways. It was where Grant in 1884 met with Century
magazine associate editor Robert Underwood Johnson and made the deal to
write for the publication, a project that led to Grant’s Personal
Memoirs. It was also where Grant first experienced throat pain that was
eventually diagnosed as the cancer that would take his life in 1885.
Renovations changed its
appearance over the years, and the cottage was demolished in 1963.
As Long Branch changed, so did the
Grant cottage. Renovations changed its appearance over the years, and the
cottage was demolished in 1963. Modern homes in today’s
considerably upscale neighborhood have replaced many of the original
properties, says Joan Schnorbus of the Long Branch Historical Museum
Association.
|
President Grant’s marker at the Long Branch monument. Photo
courtesy of Joan Schnorbus.
|
She points out there is no marker
on the cottage’s exact site, which sits on the property of what
was Childs’s chalet. The exact spot “is currently a vacant lot
used by the neighboring retreat house as a water retention/open
space site,” reports local historical activist Edward Thomas.
That chalet has been expanded into the Stella Maris Retreat
Center, which has been owned since 1941 by the Sisters of St.
Joseph of Peace.
Grant is remembered, along with the other
six presidents who spent time locally, in a small beachfront
monument in Long Branch. But elsewhere in town, the site of the
summer White House of one of history’s most important Americans
remains anonymous, just a lawn on the Jersey shore. |
The Grant Monument Association thanks
Joan Schnorbus and Jim Foley of the Long Branch Historical Museum
Association and local historical activist Edward Thomas for their most
generous assistance with this article and its illustrations. For more
information:
This monument in
Long Branch
commemorates
the presidents who vacationed in the seaside resort, including Grant. The
center statue is of President James A. Garfield, who died here in 1881.
Photo courtesy of Joan Schnorbus.
Long Branch Historical Museum
Association
|
