The Hotel and Ulysses S. Grant at Mt. McGregor
Mt. McGregor developed as a resort after a road and a small hotel (now Grant Cottage) were built by Duncan McGregor in the 1870s. A group of investors recognized the site’s potential and, in 1882, built a railroad line here from Saratoga Springs. Two years later, the luxurious Hotel Balmoral opened to guests advertising “No Dew, No Malaria, No Mosquitoes, Certain Relief from Hay Fever.” As many as seven trains a day traveled to and from the mountain. The Balmoral provided accommodations for Grant’s friends and visitors, and for the reporters who kept a constant vigil on Grant. The hotel burned in 1897, and the railroad was dismantled in 1899.
In the summer of 1885 while trying to complete his memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant was dying of throat cancer. His doctors recommended Grant leave the heat and humidity of New York City. Joseph W. Drexel offered the Grants use of his cottage on Mt. McGregor. They accepted, arriving here on June 16. Engravings from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 8, 1885.
Before arriving at Mt. McGregor, Grant had begun writing his memoirs. Grant’s friend, Samuel Clements (Mark Twain) had agreed to publish the book through his firm, Charles L. Webster & Co. It was hoped that public demand for the book would insure financial security for Grant’s wife Julia. Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States and Commanding General of the Union Army during the Civil War, died the morning of July 23, 1885, just days after completing his Personal Memoirs.
Preserving the Cottage and the Monument
After the hotel burned, the cottage and the outlook were preserved, first by the Grand Army of the Republic, and then by New York State. Today, the Friends of Ulysses S. Grant Cottage manage the site in cooperation with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the New York State Department of Corrections.
“The monument is built upon a concrete base and has a protective railing placed there by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to prevent visitors from taking chips off the monument which some years ago had to be recut because of that reason.” Excerpt from “The Passing of the Pine,” by J.F. O’Neill in the Mount McGregor Optimist, Jan, 1923.
Marker can be reached from Mt. McGregor Road, on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
