CHAPTER I.

ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD.

My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its

branches, direct and collateral.

Mathew Grant, the founder of the branch in America, of which I am a

descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts, in May, 1630. In 1635 he

moved to what is now Windsor, Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that

colony for more than forty years. He was also, for many years of the

time, town clerk. He was a married man when he arrived at Dorchester,

but his children were all born in this country. His eldest son, Samuel,

took lands on the east side of the Connecticut River, opposite Windsor,

which have been held and occupied by descendants of his to this day.

I am of the eighth generation from Mathew Grant, and seventh from

Samuel. Mathew Grant's first wife died a few years after their

settlement in Windsor, and he soon after married the widow Rockwell,

who, with her first husband, had been fellow-passengers with him and his

first wife, on the ship Mary and John, from Dorchester, England, in

1630. Mrs. Rockwell had several children by her first marriage, and

others by her second. By intermarriage, two or three generations later,

I am descended from both the wives of Mathew Grant.

In the fifth descending generation my great grandfather, Noah Grant, and

his younger brother, Solomon, held commissions in the English army, in

1756, in the war against the French and Indians. Both were killed that

year.

My grandfather, also named Noah, was then but nine years old. At the

breaking out of the war of the Revolution, after the battles of Concord

and Lexington, he went with a Connecticut company to join the

Continental army, and was present at the battle of Bunker Hill. He

served until the fall of Yorktown, or through the entire Revolutionary

war. He must, however, have been on furlough part of the time--as I

believe most of the soldiers of that period were--for he married in

Connecticut during the war, had two children, and was a widower at the

close. Soon after this he emigrated to Westmoreland County,

Pennsylvania, and settled near the town of Greensburg in that county.

He took with him the younger of his two children, Peter Grant. The

elder, Solomon, remained with his relatives in Connecticut until old

enough to do for himself, when he emigrated to the British West Indies.

Not long after his settlement in Pennsylvania, my grandfather, Captain

Noah Grant, married a Miss Kelly, and in 1799 he emigrated again, this

time to Ohio, and settled where the town of Deerfield now stands. He

had now five children, including Peter, a son by his first marriage. My

father, Jesse R. Grant, was the second child--oldest son, by the second

marriage.

Peter Grant went early to Maysville, Kentucky, where he was very

prosperous, married, had a family of nine children, and was drowned at

the mouth of the Kanawha River, Virginia, in 1825, being at the time one

of the wealthy men of the West.

My grandmother Grant died in 1805, leaving seven children. This broke

up the family. Captain Noah Grant was not thrifty in the way of "laying

up stores on earth," and, after the death of his second wife, he went,

with the two youngest children, to live with his son Peter, in

Maysville. The rest of the family found homes in the neighborhood of

Deerfield, my father in the family of judge Tod, the father of the late

Governor Tod, of Ohio. His industry and independence of character were

such, that I imagine his labor compensated fully for the expense of his

maintenance.

There must have been a cordiality in his welcome into the Tod family,

for to the day of his death he looked upon judge Tod and his wife, with

all the reverence he could have felt if they had been parents instead of

benefactors. I have often heard him speak of Mrs. Tod as the most

admirable woman he had ever known. He remained with the Tod family only

a few years, until old enough to learn a trade. He went first, I

believe, with his half-brother, Peter Grant, who, though not a tanner

himself, owned a tannery in Maysville, Kentucky. Here he learned his

trade, and in a few years returned to Deerfield and worked for, and

lived in the family of a Mr. Brown, the father of John Brown--"whose

body lies mouldering in the grave, while his soul goes marching on." I

have often heard my father speak of John Brown, particularly since the

events at Harper's Ferry. Brown was a boy when they lived in the same

house, but he knew him afterwards, and regarded him as a man of great

purity of character, of high moral and physical courage, but a fanatic

and extremist in whatever he advocated. It was certainly the act of an

insane man to attempt the invasion of the South, and the overthrow of

slavery, with less than twenty men.

My father set up for himself in business, establishing a tannery at

Ravenna, the county seat of Portage County. In a few years he removed

from Ravenna, and set up the same business at Point Pleasant, Clermont

County, Ohio.

During the minority of my father, the West afforded but poor facilities

for the most opulent of the youth to acquire an education, and the

majority were dependent, almost exclusively, upon their own exertions

for whatever learning they obtained. I have often heard him say that

his time at school was limited to six months, when he was very young,

too young, indeed, to learn much, or to appreciate the advantages of an

education, and to a "quarter's schooling" afterwards, probably while

living with judge Tod. But his thirst for education was intense. He

learned rapidly, and was a constant reader up to the day of his death in

his eightieth year. Books were scarce in the Western Reserve during his

youth, but he read every book he could borrow in the neighborhood where

he lived. This scarcity gave him the early habit of studying everything

he read, so that when he got through with a book, he knew everything in

it. The habit continued through life. Even after reading the daily

papers--which he never neglected--he could give all the important

information they contained. He made himself an excellent English

scholar, and before he was twenty years of age was a constant

contributor to Western newspapers, and was also, from that time until he

was fifty years old, an able debater in the societies for this purpose,

which were common in the West at that time. He always took an active