Ulysses S. Grant Birthplace, Ohio

Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the USA, was born in a small house at Point Pleasant, on Ohio’s frontier, in 1822. His father, who worked in a nearby tannery, rented it for $2 per month. The birthplace cabin was Grant’s home for just a year. After that, his family moved on. Though many have come from around the country to see it, this house, too, has seen a lot of the country. After Grant died, in 1885, the house was purchased by a riverboat captain, who moved it onto a barge and took it downriver to Cincinnati, where it was displayed as part of the Ohio Centennial Exposition. After that it traveled to expos and fairs around the country, mostly by railroad, including the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Soon after that the house was purchased by a businessman and history buff from Columbus who brought it to the Columbus fairgrounds. He gave it to the state, which covered it with a large brick and glass structure, and opened it to the public as the Grant Memorial Building, in 1896. It stayed there, on display, for more than 30 years. Meanwhile, back at the actual birthplace cabin site in Point Pleasant, where a small monument was installed in 1907, a movement was afoot to bring the cabin back, spurred on by a well-attended event held there for Grant’s 100th birthday, in 1922, where President Harding spoke. But efforts dragged on, so they built a replica in 1927 instead. Nine years later, an agreement was reached, and the replica was removed to make space for the assembly of the original cabin, shipped overland in pieces, then opened to the public. The cabin has had its ups and downs since—flooded, defunded, restored, then worn down again, but it is now on the National Register of Historic Places, and is in pretty good shape, and run by the state historical society.