The Captain Departs: Ulysses S. Grant's Last Campaign

4. Last Days at Mount McGregor

4. Last Days at Mount McGregor THE COTTAGE that Joseph W. Drexel bought at Mount MeGregor, ostensibly to afford him a change from the social activity and occasional sultry periods of the summer season in Saratoga, was destined and probably intended to serve a different purpose. With the approach of warm weather, there had been many suggestions on the advisability of a change of air for General Grant. There came offers from various country hotel proprietors, offering free room and board for the general and his family. It is hard to escape the thought that all of these offers were made with mixed motives. Grant's presence at any resort would go a long way to make its summer season successful . W. J. Arkell, promoter of Mount McGregor, recorded frankly in his old age that when General Grant was stricken with his fatal malady, "I thought if we could get him to come to Mount McGregor, and if he should die there, it might make the place a national shrine-and incidentally a success. So I went to Mr. Joscph W. Drexel, and through his efforts we got General Grant to come there." The story given to the press at the time, endlessly repeated and generally accepted, was a little different: Mr. Drexel had purchased the cottage for his own use; learning that Dr. Douglas was looking for some place "in the hills about Saratoga Springs," in which his distinguished patient might spend the summer, he immediately placed it at the general's disposa1.1 There is no reason to impute mercenary motives to Drexel; he was a very wealthy man for the time, he was a real philanthro57 58 THE CAPTAIN DEPARTS pist, and he was a friend of Grant's. They had probably met more than once at Long Branch, where Drexel's brother Anthony , a business associate of Childs's, had a cottage near Grant's. They had known each other in the financial world of New York. When Grant was starting a subscription to the Statue of Liberty pedestal fund, Drexel had been one of only two others who signed it. Drexel, as treasurer of the New York Cancer Hospital, probably had a sympathetic interest in Grant's case.2 Arkell was of another type, or at least at an earlier stage of his career. Money was important to him, and he was eager to make Mount McGregor payoff. It was reported during the following summer and not denied that Drexel was one of the original subscribers to the development. He bought the cottage on Aprill, 1885, from one John D. Burke, who had bought it the same day from the Saratoga, Mt. McGregor and Lake George Railroad Company. Burke paid $500 for the eottage, and Drexel paid him the same amount. This double sale with no profit seems to have been a device to avoid any question that might come up over the sale of property by the corporation to one of its stockholders. Neither sale, oddly enough, was completed by the deed being "sealed and delivered" until after the death of General Grant. Technically, the cottage still belonged to the railroad company that summer. It seems fair to assume that Drexel bought the cottage to please Arkell and at the same time make a generous gesture to the general, and that he had little or no intention of using it himself.3 Arkell, rather than Drexel, made most of the arrangements. The New York Tribune reported on April 19 that "The Grant family decided yesterday to sell their cottage at Long Branch, and they will take the General to the Catskills this summer, if his health permits his removal from the city." Only a day or two later, Dr. Douglas denied this story. He said that "Gen. Grant would not go to the Catskills, even if he went out of the city." On April 26 the Tribune, telling of Grant's physical condition of the day before, said that "In the morning W. J. Arkell called and arranged definitely with the family for taking General Grant to Mount McGregor in the latter part of June or early Last Days at Mount McGregor 59 in July.... The cottage of Joseph W. Drexel, at Mount McGregor , which has been tendered to General Grant, is large enough to accommodate all the members of the family who intend to accompany him." Mr. Drexel had given directions...