A History of Mt. A History of Mt. McGregor McGregor

Part I: Part I: “Lest We Forget”“Lest We Forget”Joseph Knapp, the Grand Army of the Republic, Joseph Knapp, the Grand Army of the Republic,

Grant Cottage, and the Metropolitan Life Grant Cottage, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance CompanyInsurance Company

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““I feel the I feel the air very fine air very fine here. This here. This must must become a become a great great sanitorium sanitorium before many before many years.” years.”

U. S. GrantU. S. GrantMt. McGregor, 1885Mt. McGregor, 1885

Grant’s Tomb Dedication BookletCompliments of

Metropolitan Life Insurance CompanyApril 27, 1897

18631863 The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is started by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is started by

a group of New York City businessmen who raise a group of New York City businessmen who raise $100,000 (1.8 million in today’s dollars) to found the $100,000 (1.8 million in today’s dollars) to found the

National Life and Limb Insurance Company. The National Life and Limb Insurance Company. The company insured Civil War sailors and soldiers against company insured Civil War sailors and soldiers against

disabilities due to wartime wounds, accidents, and disabilities due to wartime wounds, accidents, and sickness.sickness.

March 24, 1868 The company becomes known as

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Companyand shifts focus to the life insurance business.

The first Metropolitan Home Office Buildingat 243 Broadway, New York City.

1872 – 1891

Joseph F. Knapp holds the position of president of the

Metropolitan. Knapp is also a very well-known philanthropist and an influential supporter of the New York Division of the

Civil War veteran organization, the Grand Army of the Republic.

(GAR)

Knapp has a special interest in the GAR’s U. S. Grant Post 327, Brooklyn, NY. Among Knapp’s friends is General Ulysses S. Grant who is an honored guest at GAR functions held at Knapp’s Bedford Avenue home in Brooklyn.

Members of U. S. Grant Post 327 would provide

an honor guard for General Grant’s funeral in 1885. Among them is George W. Brush, M.D.,

a recipient of the Congressional Medal of

Honor and Henry W. Knight who helped

carry President Lincoln from Ford’s Theatre to the Petersen boarding

house (April 14, 1865).

1879Knapp brings the European

idea of “industrial” or “workingmen’s” insurance to

the United States. This form of insurance is issued in small

amounts on which premiums are collected weekly or monthly

at the policyholder’s home.

1880Metropolitan Life Insurance Company

policyholders number in excess of 250,000.

Former President and Civil War General U. S. Grant returns from his worldtour an international celebrity. He settles in New York City with his wife, Julia,

to be near their children. Grant is convinced to invest his money and prestige in theWall Street firm of Grant & Ward.

May 6, 1884The firm of Grant & Ward fails as the result of an elaborate Ponzi

scheme perpetrated by Grant’s business partner Ferdinand Ward. The Grant family finds itself not only impoverished but in debt. Though

the General has no knowledge of the swindle, he feels a responsibility to pay creditors and to find a way to regain his family’s financial

stability. He decides to become an author. (Pictured above left to right; U.S. Grant, U.S. Grant, Jr., and

Ferdinand Ward)

March 1, 1885

The New York Times announces that General Grant is dying of throat cancer. Attention and sympathy at home and

abroad becomes focused on his race

with death to complete his memoirs. The first

international death watch begins.

Daily newspapers print reports on the General’s condition. Crowds gather outside the Grant home on East 66th

Street to offer their respect and support.

June 16, 1885On the advice of Grant’s physicians, the

General accepts family friend Joseph Drexel’s offer to use his summer cottage on Mt. McGregor located in New York’s

Adirondack foothills. Record high temperatures in New York City have

caused a swift deterioration in Grant’s condition. It is hoped the cooler, drier air of Mt. McGregor will prolong the

General’s life. Reporters and crowds of well-wishers follow.

The General dies on July 23rd, 1885 – three days after completing his memoirs. America goes into mourning.

Grant’s funeral in New York City on August 8th will be the largest public event in the city’s history until the Armistice of

World War I.

On the day of Grant’s death, discussions begin on what to do with the cottage. The cottage’s

owner, Joseph Drexel, authorizes a statement “that the

cottage will never again be occupied by any family or

persons.” The New York Times reports, “It has been proposed that the cottage will be deeded to the government” and that “a fence should be put around it, and that it be preserved about as the Grant family leaves it.”

July 25, 1885

Honoring the March request of Commander Henry M. Calvert of the GAR Brooklyn Post 327, New York GAR Commander H.C. Hall

signs special order 118 authorizing the previously unnamed Post 327 to assume the

name of “U.S. Grant Post.”The order is co-signed by Assistant Adjutant

General O.P. Clarke.Commander Henry M. Calvert

March 1886

Drexel first offers the Cottage to the federal government. A bill is sent to the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds. The Chair of this

committee refers the bill to a hostile subcommittee, and it is never allowed to come to a vote.

In spite of the government’s inaction on taking ownership of the Cottage, thousands of battle scarred veterans and their

families visit the site as an act of personal and collective healing. An 1890 New York Times article estimates that

close to 250,000 people have come to Mt. McGregor to pay their respects by the time the Cottage opens as a museum in

that year.

Photo courtesy of Saratoga Springs History Museum

Hoping that Grant’s death on Mt. McGregor “would make the place,” landowner and promoter, W.J. Arkell finds that “it killed the place” instead. He observes that visitors “took off their hats and walked around on tiptoes, looking for something I could never find.”

1887

Joseph Drexel approaches the National GAR to take Drexel Cottage. As the GAR was not created to hold or administer real estate, approval by the New York State Legislature

is needed – Drexel dies before approval is achieved.

February 19, 1889The Mount McGregor Memorial Association is incorporated by the New York State Legislature and accepts title of the Cottage (and a small surrounding area of the grounds). No maintenance funds are

provided for the site now known as “Grant Cottage”.

1889

The National GAR Encampment approves $600 ($15,100 in today’s dollars) for the Grant Cottage caretaker’s salary. In addition, funds are donated

to purchase and install a furnace for Grant Cottage by GAR Comrade J. Wesley Smith.

The Iowa delegate who wore this 1889 National

Encampment badge voted on the issue

of the caretaker’s salary for Grant Cottage

Utica attorney and GAR official Oliver Pendleton (O.P.) Clarke is urged by his physicians and friends to take the caretaker’s position in hopes that Clarke would regain some measure of his health (lost as a prisoner-of-war in the infamous Camp Sumter at Andersonville, Georgia).

1890

Grant Cottage opens as a museum. Tours are conducted by GAR Comrade O.P. Clarke,

caretaker (and his wife, Martha Josephine Kelsey Clarke). He will remain

caretaker until his death in 1917.

1891

The National GAR again approaches the federal

government to take responsibility for Grant

Cottage without success.

1892

Following the death of his father on September 14, 1891, Joseph Palmer Knapp joins the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s

Board of Directors. Also upon the elder Knapp’s death, his long-time friend and former Vice President John R. Hegeman becomes the

third president of the Metropolitan.

John R. Hegeman (left) and Joseph Palmer Knapp (right).

1892 – 1917

O.P. Clarke supplements his caretaker’s salary within this time period by assisting New York State Senator Edgar T. Brackett

with legal work while the Senator runs his law practice without any formal partners. Senator Brackett’s law office is located in

Saratoga Springs City Hall.

Courtesy of Jean Woutersz, Wilton Town Historian

1893

The National GAR develops a plan for the support and maintenance of Grant Cottage. It takes the form of a small “head tax” on each

GAR member.

1894

The New York State GAR takes over funding the Mt.

McGregor Memorial Association trust (via head

tax on New York State GAR veterans), as renewed

attempts to interest Congress or the New York State Legislature in taking

responsibility for Grant Cottage are again

unsuccessful.

May 14, 1896

A bill to appropriate $1,000 ($27,000 in today’s dollars) per year for the maintenance and support of Grant Cottage, to be paid to the Mt. McGregor Memorial Association, passes the

New York State Legislature.

1909 – 1910

The Metropolitan becomes the nation’s largest life insurer.

During this period, the Metropolitan makes the decision

to build a sanitarium for it’s employees suffering from

tuberculosis. A search begins for a suitable building site.

New York State Senator Edgar T. Brackett successfully lobbies Metropolitan officials to build the sanitarium complex on Mt.

McGregor.

December 1910

The Metropolitan purchases the property surrounding Grant Cottage (approximately 1200 acres) and begins construction on a tuberculosis

sanitarium for its affected employees. The facility begins taking patients in 1913.

Photos courtesy of the Orton Collection

1914

A young Japanese immigrant, Suye Narita, arrives at the

sanitarium on Mt. McGregor for treatment of her tuberculosis. She is

successfully treated by Dr. Howk, the physician in

charge at the facility. Suye will live with the Clarkes at

Grant Cottage as their adopted daughter until their

deaths, and work at the sanitarium as a librarian and

co-editor of the “Metropolitan Optimist.”Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

1916

A stone marker affixed with a Grant memorial plaque is erected in front of the eastern elevation of Grant Cottage by the New York

Division of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. New York Governor Charles S. Whitman is a speaker at the dedication.

1917

Martha Clarke, wife of O.P. Clarke, convinces the GAR to

allow her to become Grant Cottage’s caretaker

following the death of her husband.

Photo courtesy of the Upham Collection

1930

The Metropolitan is insuring every fifth man, woman, and child in the United States. The company finances the construction of the Empire State Building in 1929 and

provides the capital to build Rockefeller Center in 1931.

1941

Martha Clark dies. Suye Narita (later Gambino upon

her marriage in 1950) becomes the next caretaker. She will remain the live-in caretaker until her death in

1984.

Photo courtesy of the Upham Collection

1945

New York State purchases the buildings and grounds of the sanitarium for what would

become the Mt. McGregor Sate Veteran Rest Camp. Over the next 14 years 35,000

veterans will be guests at the camp. One Pacific theatre World War II veteran, Anthony

Gambino, will stay at the facility to recover from tuberculosis and malaria. Gambino

marries Narita and the mountain will remain a part of his life until his death in 1986.

Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

Photo courtesy of Jean Woutersz

1957

The Mt. McGregor Memorial Association is dissolved, and New York State takes title of

Grant Cottage under the auspices of the State

Education Department. The Cottage will remain under the administration of the

State Education Department until 1966 when the New

York State Historic Trust is established under the

director of State Parks.

The same year, Governor Averell Harriman proposes

repurposing the rest camp as a mental hospital. There is

such strong opposition to the idea among veteran

organizations that “Harriman retired in some confusion.”

Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

1960

Early in Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s administration, the old sanitarium/rest camp property is repurposed as an

annex to the Rome State School for the Mentally

Retarded (later renamed the Wilton School).

February 18, 1971

Grant cottage is added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

April 1971

William Tyrrell, chief of historic sites trust management for the New York State Historic Trust, announces he will close Grant Cottage as it “seemed to be a way of reducing expenditures.” Though officially closed, Suye Gambino continues to live upstairs in the Cottage and

to give tours when visitors knock.

Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

1973

Grant Cottage reopens under the administration of the newly created New York State Offices of Parks and Recreation. The Sons

of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUV) place a flagpole at the Eastern Overlook and continue the tradition of holding an annual May memorial ceremony on the grounds. The SUV is a fraternal

organization founded in 1881. They became the legal successors to the GAR when they were incorporated by an Act of Congress in

1954. Their mission is to preserve the history and legacy of Civil War veterans.

Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

1976

The old sanitarium property is yet again repurposed – this time as the Mt. McGregor Work Camp – part of the New York State

Department of Corrections (minimum security). By 1981 medium security prisoners are also house at the prison.

Photo courtesy of the Orton Collection

End of Part I

By Melissa Trombley-Prosch and Jarrod PrescottEdited by Jonathan Duda

AcknowledgementsImages used in Part I are from the Trombley-Prosch Collection (including 1889 GAR National Encampment badge, Library of Congress photographs, Gilman photographs - interior & exterior views of Grant Cottage, Harpers Weekly and Frank Leslie images) unless otherwise noted.

Additional images from the Orton & Upham Collections, Saratoga Springs History Museum, Jean Woutersz (Wilton Town Historian).

Thanks to Michael Prosch, Matt Trombley, Jean Woutersz, and Jerry Orton for their project assistance.