[CHAPTER II.]
Wherein Captain Galligasken delineates the early History of the illustrious Soldier, and deduces therefrom the Presages of Future Greatness.
I respectfully subscribe myself a cosmopolitan, not in the sense that I am a citizen of the world—God forbid! for I am too proud of my title as an American citizen to share my nationality with any other realm under the sun. I am cosmopolitan in the "everywhere" significance of the term; and it has been a cause of sincere regret to me that I could only be in one place at one time; but I ought to be content, since I always happened to be in sight or hearing of the illustrious subject of my feeble admiration.
Point Pleasant is a village on the Ohio, twenty-five miles above Cincinnati, celebrated for nothing in particular, except being the birthplace of General Grant, which, however, is glory enough for any town; and passengers up and down the beautiful river, for generations to come, will gaze with wondering interest at its spires, because there first drew the breath of life the immortal man who has been and still is Our Standard-Bearer.
Many people have a fanatical veneration for blood as such. I confess I yield no allegiance to this sentiment, for I expect to be what I make myself, rather than what I am made by my distinguished ancestor, Sir Bernard Galligasken. But those who attach any weight to pedigree may be reasonably gratified in the solid character of the progenitors of General Grant. He came from the Grants of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, whose heraldic motto was, "Stand fast, stand firm, stand sure!" which, by an astonishing prescience of the seers of the clan, seems to have been invented expressly to describe the moral and mental attributes of the illustrious soldier of our day.
Matthew Grant was a passenger in the Mary and John, and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1630. The American citizen, whose pride tempts him to look beyond the Pilgrim Fathers for glorious ancestors, ought to have been born in England, where pride of birth bears its legitimate fruit. Grant came in a direct line from one of these worthies; but I never heard him congratulate himself even on this fortunate and happy origin. Noah Grant, a descendant of the stout Puritan, emigrated to Connecticut, and was a captain in the Old French War. He was killed in battle, in 1756, having attained the rank of captain. His son, also taking the patriarchal name, was belligerent enough to have been killed in battle, for he was a soldier in the revolutionary war from Lexington—where he served as a lieutenant—to Yorktown, the last engagement of that seven years' strife. This faithful soldier was the general's grandfather. He had a son named for Mr. Chief Justice Jesse Root, of Connecticut, who was the father of Our Standard-Bearer.
Jesse Root Grant was born in Pennsylvania, but when he was ten years of age his parents removed to the Western Reserve of Ohio. He was apprenticed to a tanner at Maysville, Kentucky, when he was sixteen, and set up in business for himself at Ravenna, Ohio, when he was of age; but severe illness compelled him to relinquish it for a time. In 1820 he settled at Point Pleasant, and married Miss Hannah Simpson. Here, in a little one-story house, still in existence, was born the subject of our story.