Hardscrabble: Grant's Farm
Grant's Farm
SITE
site is located on the property of a private business offering food, entertainment, and animal encounters
7385 Grant Rd,
St. Louis, MO 63123
Mon - Thu 9am - 5pm
Fri - Sun 9am - 10pm
Admission is free (donation-based), however parking costs.
Free beer
Recommend purchasing parking pass ahead of time
Cabin accessed via private tour booking only
- exclusive guided tour of Grant's Farm where you will tour the Anheuser-Busch family home, the cabin home of our 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant and an adventure through our animal park where you and your group can feed a variety of animals.
- 2 hours
HISTORY
In 1854, at age 32, Grant entered civilian life, without any money-making vocation to support his growing family. It was the beginning of seven years of financial struggles, poverty, and instability. Grant's father offered him a place in the Galena, Illinois, branch of the family's leather business, but demanded Julia and the children stay in Missouri, with the Dents, or with the Grants in Kentucky. Grant and Julia declined. For the next four years, Grant farmed with the help of Julia's slave, Dan, on his brother-in-law's property, Wish-ton-wish, near St. Louis. The farm was not successful and to earn an alternate living he sold firewood on St. Louis street corners.
In 1856, the Grants moved to land on Julia's father's farm, and built a home called "Hardscrabble" on Grant's Farm. Julia described the rustic house as an "unattractive cabin", but made the dwelling as homelike as possible. Grant's family had little money, clothes, and furniture, but always had enough food. During the Panic of 1857, which devastated Grant as it did many farmers, Grant pawned his gold watch to buy Christmas gifts. In 1858, Grant rented out Hardscrabble and moved his family to Julia's father's 850-acre plantation. That fall, after having malaria, Grant gave up farming.
That same year, Grant acquired a slave from his father-in-law, a thirty-five-year-old man named William Jones. Although Grant was not an abolitionist at the time, he disliked slavery and could not bring himself to force an enslaved man to work. In March 1859, Grant freed Jones by a manumission deed, potentially worth at least $1,000 ($37,852.41 in 2024).
Grant moved to St. Louis, taking on a partnership with Julia's cousin Harry Boggs working in the real estate business as a bill collector, again without success and at Julia's prompting ended the partnership. In August, Grant applied for a position as county engineer. He had thirty-five notable recommendations, but Grant was passed over by the Free Soil and Republican county commissioners because he was believed to share his father-in-law's Democratic sentiments.