Hospice at Drexel Cottage — part 10
This is the conclusion of a series of posts about the last weeks in the life of Ulysses S. Grant, as reported in The Morning Star of Glens Falls.
Veteran Willett, who had served with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War, pitched his tent behind Drexel Cottage, near where the general’s grandchildren played.
“Though time has frosted his hair, it has left his heart young and kindly, and he has constituted himself the children’s playmate and protector,” The Morning Star reported of the veteran who was among the Grand Army of the Republic veterans that camped at Mount McGregor after Grant died from throat cancer.
Willett had rigged up swings, set up a croquet course, and built a makeshift playhouse for the children’s use.
“The only regret the veteran had was that the children will go away and forget him entirely.”
The mood at the children’s play area on Aug. 4, 1885, the day of Grant’s Mount McGregor funeral, was a marked contrast to the rest of the mountain.
“Seen from the hotel on the road from the depot, the cottage does indeed look like the abode of sorrow, blinds closed, crape on the door, and general Army men on the stoop mute and still,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported. “But in the rear of the cottage, screened from public view, there is daily enacted scenes which illustrated how kindly nature shields the children of the Grant family from the blighting influence of the grief and sorrow.”
About 1,000 people, including “a large number of Glens Falls people,” attended the 10 a.m. funeral.
Bishop M. L. Harris of the Methodist Episcopal conference of New York City and the Rev. John Philip Newman, Grant’s personal hospice chaplain, participated.
“Bishop Harris offered an earnest prayer, lasting sixteen minutes, in which there was a feeling tribute to the dead hero.”
Chorister Henry Camp of Brooklyn and a choir of ladies led in singing “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” and “Nearer My God to Thee.”
Psalm 19 was read.
“Dr. Newman began his address at 10:20 o’clock and spoke at times husky with emotion. … A gentle breeze tempered the heat so the air was pleasant.”
After the funeral, Grant’s casket was loaded on a railroad observation car bound for Saratoga Springs and on to Albany, where the body would lie in state at the state Capitol, and then to New York City for a larger funeral and burial.
An attempted disturbance on the route was avoided.
“A gang of roughs tried to force their way into the Saratoga station of the Mount McGregor railroad,” The Morning Star reported. “Emma Fowler, the telegraph agent, drew a revolver and threatened to shoot the first man that entered. The intruders thereupon departed with haste.”
Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.
