Grant's White Haven

After we finished looking up my family in the archives, we went to the Grant NHS.

SIgn - Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site

Visitor's Center

We went to the Visitor's Center and after I got my passport stamped, we watched the 16-minute introductory film, A Place Called White Haven, shown in the Visitor Center theater, and went through the museum.

Newspaper with a shell

Pieces of slate pencils suggest that the slaves were secretly learning to read and write

Map of the track around the property

Then we visited the Main House:

Etching of the original

Main House

• Free interpretive visits to the Main House are usually offered every 30 minutes beginning at 9:30 a.m. Typically the last house visit of the day begins at 4:00 p.m.

• Due to preservation and safety concerns, space is limited for each time slot and tickets (which are free, and available at the Visitor Center desk) are required to reserve a place.

Grant NP ranger

Actually in our case, there was no one else there at that time of day/year, so we had a private tour. The ranger explained that Grant was virtually bankrupt and knew he was dying of cancer. In order to leave his wife with some money, as he was dying, he wrote his memoirs. Their publication made his wife a rich widow.

We found out that White Haven was named after the family farm house, but was actually painted green.

Green White Haven

Inside they had those TV photo screens and video commentary.

Dresser at Grant's house

Afterwards we toured the site outbuildings.

White Haven's outbuildings

Door to a shed- sign says "Slaves only"

Outbuilding

Fireplace

Beams in one of the outbuildings

Table in an outbuilding

Detail of siding

Detail of the roof inside

Carriage

and then we drove back here, getting gas on the way.

Gas station

Farmington is not a very tourist oriented town, so it was sometimes hard to find a place to eat. We stopped at the Ponderosa

Menu board in Ponderosa

to have dinner on the way back from St. Louis. I got a

Steak and baked potato

and there was also a salad bar.

Bob's steamed shrimp

We leave tomorrow for home, and Bob and I have been arguing over what route to take. We had a choice of going north to St. Louis and crossing the Mississippi there or going south and going through rural Illinois.