GEORGETOWN, Ohio | Because of one family’s generosity, the site of Jesse Grant’s tannery on East Grant Avenue has been gifted to the Ohio History Connection.
The gift was made by Bob Waters and his family; daughters, Joan Baird of San Marcos, Calif. and Cheryl Turner of Cincinnati, both retired school teachers; and son, Bob, a pharmacist and drug store owner in Georgetown.
The property has been in the Waters family for 143 years, beginning with the Christian Single family.
Bob and his late wife, Virginia remodeled the building in 1938 not long after they married. The couple raised their three children there and Bob continued to live there until his move to the Ohio Veteran’s Home in Georgetown.
Son Bob Waters said Friday it was with mixed feelings the family gifted the property after it being in the family for seven generations. He said a dialog was started with the Ohio History Connection several years ago, and when it came time to clean out his family’s possessions, they knew it was the right time.
“We were all at the point we knew the thing to do was for the property to go back to the Grant estate,” he said. “There’s lots of family history for us too. Was it a difficult for us to do? Yes and no. We were all on the same page; we wanted this to happen.”
Lee Schweickart, a member of the U.S. Grant Homestead Association, said the family has always had a deep attachment to the property and an awareness of its historical significance. He said their decision will guarantee the preservation and maintenance of the property.
The Waters’ gift means visitors to Georgetown will now have a more complete picture of U.S. General and President Ulysses S. Grant’s life in Georgetown.
The gift of the tannery is the third physical element of Grant’s life in Ohio. There is also his boyhood home, which stands across the street from the tannery; and the schoolhouse Grant attended, just a few streets away.
One of five children of Jesse and Hannah Grant, Ulysses was 18 months old when his parents moved from Point Pleasant, Ohio to Georgetown.
The tannery property has had an interesting 192 years.Â
Built in 1823 when the Grants moved to what was then the outskirts of town, the tannery site has elements of history throughout the tract of land gifted by the Waters family.
There is the tannery building; foundation remains in the yard of what was once a sawmill later converted to a flour mill, two grain storage buildings that were part of the mills; a log house that was covered in clapboard many years ago, an old well and the outline of what may have been a garden at the rear of the tannery building.
Segments of the original stone wall bordering the property also remain.
“It’s neat we can now show all factors of Grant’s life growing up,” said Lee.
Lee said Jesse Grant’s business would have also been called a currier house. The definition of “currier” is a person who dresses and colors leather after its tanned.
Lee and Ned Lodwick, also a member of the U.S. Grant Homestead Association, said the Ohio History Connection will most likely conduct a ground scan of the property in hopes of locating the foundation of the saw/flour mill; and the tanning pits that were at the rear of the property.
They explained the tanning pits were used to soak hides in oak bark to get tannic acid out of them. Ned said one of the reasons Jesse Grant moved to Georgetown was because of the abundance of oak trees.
Lee said Ulysses hated working the tannery, which would have been hot and nasty work, scraping flesh and hair from the hides. It also involved breaking up the bark for the tanning process.
Lee said Ulysses found other ways to earn money instead of working at the tannery. At the age of 10, he was breaking horses and by the time he was 12, he was driving people back and forth to Cincinnati.
While the Ohio History Connection plans for the property are still unclear, members of the U.S. Grant Homestead Association are excited to have the property. Lee said he is aware of only one other tanning museum in America: the George Peabody House and Museum in Peabody, Mass.
The following is a history of the Jesse Grant Tannery site.
*In 1823 the Grant family moves to Georgetown from Pleasant Point and Jesse starts a tannery business.
*In 1841 Jesse and Eli Collins formed a partnership to operate a larger tannery in Bethel and a leather goods store in Galena, Ill.
*After Jesse sold his home and business, the tannery continued to operate for several years and the property was later occupied by a manufacturer of plug tobacco and a sawmill.
*Christan Single, a German immigrant who had grist mills in Kentucky and Georgetown, bought the sawmill in 1872, replacing it with a flour mill.
Upon his death, the property passed to his daughter, Julia Single Waters, then to her son, Willard Waters, who added a one-story addition to the rear of the building in 1921.
* In 1944, the tract including the mill was sold to the Brown County Farm Bureau while the Waters family kept the tannery building. The Farm Bureau operated the mill until 1965 when the business moved; the mill was torn down, two grain storage buildings remain.
It was at this time Bob Waters, great-grandson of Christian Single, purchased the mill property, restoring most of the original tannery lot.
*In a bizarre and sad twist to the history of the property, in October 1901, one of the mill engineers, Homer Fite, shot, beat and stabbed his wife at “the little brick house” in the neighborhood of the Grant tannery, then committed suicide by a gunshot to the head at the Single mill, next to the Fite home.
According to an Oct. 3, 1901 article in the People’s Defender of West Union, Ohio, Fite’s wife was found lying on the floor with a bullet hole just under her left eye, three stab wounds in her breast and her head badly beaten. She said her husband shot her with a flobert rifle (a low-power European rifle used for short-range target shooting and pest control) after a quarrel, beat her and stabbed her with a carving knife.
The article indicates Mrs. Fite’s recovery was doubtful.
This photo, which is on display at the U.S. Grant Boyhood Home across the street from the tannery, shows the facade of the building with the door in the center. When the building was converted to a home, the door became a small window.
Barely visible to the left of the tannery building is the Single (flour) Mill. The mill was purchased by the Brown County Farm Bureau in 1944. It was in operation until 1965, when the business moved and the mill was torn down.
U.S. Grant Homestead Association members Ned Lodwick, left, and Lee Schweickart are always willing to share their knowledge about Ulysses S. Grant and his father’s tannery business. Lee said Grant hated the tannery business and was always looking for ways to work away from the site.
Prior to being converted into a home, the first floor of the tannery was open, with fireplaces on the east and west walls. The hides were taken to the second floor and hung from the building’s beams to dry.
This grain storage building straddles the Town Run, which is the commonly known name of the creek that borders the property. The metal building stands on the original stacked stone foundation of the earliest mill at the sight, which was a sawmill. Christian Single bought the sawmill in 1872 and converted it to a flour mill. Both buildings seen in this photo were used for storage.Â
Lee Schweickart holds up a piece of leather used for demonstrations at the U.S. Grant Boyhood Home. He said any town of any size had a tannery, which produced leather for everything from clothing and horse tack, to stagecoaches and wagons.
