July 23, 1885 –
One of the most famous residents of West 122nd Street and Riverside Drive made a most fateful decision on this date.
He decided to give up the ghost.
In 1881, Ulysses S. Grant – American general, the eighteenth President of the United States, and a famous horseback-riding drunk – purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward. The arrangement was suggested by Grant’s son Buck (Ulysses Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street. Very wrong move.
Ward swindled Grant (and other investors encouraged by Grant) in 1884, bankrupted the company – Grant and Ward – and fled. Ward had effectively invented the Ponzi scheme before the term existed.
Grant learned around the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. He and his family were left destitute; at the time, retired U.S. Presidents did not receive pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he became President. He first wrote several articles on his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain then offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75% of the book’s sales as royalties.
Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The memoirs sold over 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family more than $450,000. Twain promoted the book as “the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar,” and Grant’s memoirs have also been praised by writers such as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written.
Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63, in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was a request: “Water.” (I’d like to believe it was actually, “Sir, cut my bourbon with water.”).”
Grant’s funeral was one of the greatest outpourings of public grief in history. A large funeral parade marched through New York City from City Hall to Riverside Park. It had 60,000 marchers, stretched seven miles, and took up to five hours to pass. Well over one million spectators witnessed the parade.
Numerous dignitaries attended, including President Grover Cleveland, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, the two living ex-presidents (Hayes and Arthur), virtually the entire Congress, and almost every prominent living figure from the Civil War.
Civil War veterans from both North and South took part, reflecting the high esteem in which Grant was held throughout a reunified country. General Winfield S. Hancock led the procession, and Grant’s pallbearers included former comrades—General William T. Sherman, General Philip H. Sheridan, and Admiral David D. Porter – as well as former Confederates – Generals Joseph E. Johnston and Simon B. Buckner.
Completed in 1897, Grant’s Tomb is the second-largest mausoleum in North America (President Garfield’s memorial is the largest).
And so it goes
The Haus of Dcaligari 