My blog on President Grant's coming to Stamford in the 1880's to write his memoirs elicited two responses. Both questioned the accuracy of some of my statements.
One respondent is writing a biography of his great grandfather Fernando Ward and the other is a trustee of the Grant cottage at Mt. Macgregor in upstate New York where Grant spent the last waning weeks of his life feverishly completing his memoirs.
As you may recall, I photographed a plaque that is at the entrance to the Holbrook Estates area of our city which reads in part that the General "visited and began writing his memoirs" on this site between 1881-1884.
I met with the person behind the erection of this monument and read her beautiful Grant portfolio of newspaper stories and Grant memoribilia and could find no explicit source to back up this claim.
So is the story apocryphal?
The best I can say is that no one disputes the fact that Grant visited Ward on his estate during the time of Grant's investing money with the former.
There is no documention, however, concerning Grant's actually writing his memoirs in Stamford. Perhaps, he was thinking about his memoirs and perhaps Ward suggested he write them to generate much needed funds.
I apologize for any confusion and misunderstanding my blog may have caused and I am thankful to the two respondents to my blog to help set the story straight.
1 comment:
Thank you for looking into the origin of the story that Grant began writing his memoirs at Ward's home to raise more money to invest in Grant and Ward. However, Ferdinand Ward had never encouraged, in any shape or manner, General Grant to write his Memoirs, especially to raise more money to invest in Grant and Ward. Grant had invested about $100,000 in Grant and Ward in 1881 along with other family members He also borrowed $150,000 for W.H. Vanderbilt at Ward's request to bolster the firm. The fact that Grant visited Ward at his home was never in dispute. Ward was running the classic Ponzi scheme and Grant was receiving an excellent return on his investments. He had no need to raise more money. It was only after Grant and Ward failed in May 1884, due to Ward's fraud and dishonesty, and Grant found himself penniless, that he began his Memoirs. Ward later would state that if it weren't for him, Grant would have never written his memoirs. Now that's chutzpah! But nevertheless true.
My question is for the woman responsible for the erection of this monument. Will she allow this plaque to remain as is and therefore perpetuate this historical inaccuracy? This is very important to us at Grant Cottage and, of course, to Ward's great-grandson, a noted historian, that the truth be known.
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