Page "Ulysses S. Grant" Paragraph 18

At age 32, with no civilian vocation, Grant began to struggle through seven financially lean years.

Jesse initially offered Grant a position in the Galena, Illinois branch of the tannery business, on condition that Julia and the children, for economic reasons, stay with her parents or the Grants in Kentucky.

Ulysses and Julia were adamantly opposed to another separation, and declined the offer.

From 1854 to 1858, Grant labored on a Dent family farm near St. Louis, Missouri, using slaves owned by Julia's father, but it did not succeed.

In 1856, Grant, in order to give his family a home, built a house he called " Hardscrabble ", and which he considered an achievement.

Julia hated the rustic house, which she described as an " unattractive cabin ".

During this time, Grant also acquired a slave from Julia's father ; Julia herself had inherited four slaves.

Having met with no success farming, the Grants left the St. Louis farm when their fourth and final child was born in 1858.

Grant, notably, freed his slave instead of selling him, at a time when slaves commanded a high price and Grant needed money badly.

For the next year, the family took a small house in St. Louis where he worked, again without success, with Julia's cousin Harry Boggs, as a bill collector.

In 1860 Jesse offered him the job in his tannery in Galena, Illinois, without condition, which Ulysses accepted.

The leather shop, " Grant & Perkins ", sold harnesses, saddles, and other leather goods and purchased hides from farmers in the prosperous Galena area.

He moved his family to Galena before the Civil War broke out.