the township of Point Pleasant, county of Clermont, in Ohio.

About the time of which we are now writing another Pennsylvanian, a farmer by the name of John Simpson, removed with his household to Clermont County, on the Ohio river, near Cincinnati. The neighborhoods were but sparsely settled then; and it was not long, as they all emigrated from the same State, before the Grants and the Simpsons came to be well acquainted. Jesse Grant and Hannah Simpson "made a match," and in due time were lawfully married. Jesse was a quiet, cautious, earnest young man, with an abundant supply of resolution and perseverance. He was fond of business, and soon resolved that he would add a tannery to his farm, near one of the flourishing villages of Ohio. Hannah was a young woman of remarkable good sense, with a calm, serious, domestic temperament. She loved her home, as all good wives and mothers always do. Entering into her husband's enterprise with all the energy of character peculiar to successful Western pioneers, she aided much in his material prosperity. They were a happy pair. The soil of their birth was dear to them, and they prized it all the more highly that it was all free.

The ordinance of the Congress of the United States had made all that north-western region sacred to human freedom. No slaves were allowed to be held in the land. Hence the farmers, the mechanics,

EMIGRATION OF HIS ANCESTORS.

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the manufacturers, moved rapidly and gladly into the new and fruitful territory, happy to find such wide openings for their industry, where the virgin soil should be unpolluted by the curse of slavery.

On the twenty-seventh day of April, 1822, the first child of Jesse and Hannah Grant was born. He was called HIRAM ULYSSES GRANT; but subsequently this was changed to ULYSSES SIDNEY GRANT, and by that name he is now known to the world. Had the name "Hiram" been retained, there are many who would have been reminded by it of an illustrious master-workman of old, whose skill as an architect, and whose industry as a builder, are made immortal in the history of the temple of King Solomon, at Jerusalem. But the name "Ulysses" is in some respects equally celebrated, and will be always remembered in connection with strategy and courage in war.

"Ulysses," said his father to the boy one day, "I want you to drive the team down to the woods, where the hands are ready to load up some logs."

Ulysses was then but twelve years old; but the spirit of enterprise and self-reliance he had received from his parents was strong within him. He therefore started at once with the team, and found the logs, but no men to load them.

"Ah!" said Ulysses to himself, "I see how it is. These logs have got to be loaded; for father wants them. I must make up in wit what I lack in strength."

So he looked carefully around him, until he came to a fallen tree, one end of which was lying on the stump, about the height of his cart from the ground. Unhitching his team, he drew the log nearest to him up the side of the prostrate tree, and so on with the next, until all he wanted were in the right position. He then backed his cart under the load, and drew each log over the tree, fastened it with his chain to the cart, and drove off triumphantly with his team, reaching his home in safety.

"Why, Ulysses!" said his father, as he saw him driving up. "Where are the men? Didn't they

help you?"

"I don't know where they are," replied the boy; " and I don't care either: for I got the load without them."

This was the first home enterprise of Ulysses. It was an early and striking indication of his character, showing a latent power to adapt means to ends in any emergency.

The occupation of the father was such that the son was frequently placed exclusively in the care of his mother. She, however, was not content to leave him, as many mothers leave their children, to the routine instruction of the common-school of the neighborhood. It was her belief that home-influence means something more than merely providing a rising family with the necessaries of life. Her lessons of duty as a mother were learned from the Holy Book:

THE LOAD OF LOGS.

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"Train up a child in the way he should go; and, when he is old, he will not depart from it." She saw and read beautiful applications of this great truth in the book of nature, ever open before her in that Western land. The birds of the forest taught her wisdom, which she, in turn, taught to her children. These creatures of the infinite Father were numerous around her dwelling then; for they were but seldom molested by the rifle of the huntsman, or scared from their pleasant homes among the leaves by the horns of the boatmen, the shriek of the railroad locomotive, or the thunder of the train of cars. They came to the sugar-maple, and white-wood, and black-walnut trees that stood near her doors and windows, and built their little houses of thatch and clay, and reared their families beside hers. Here they talked to one another in their bird-language; here they twittered, and chirped, and sang; here the elder guarded the younger, not only feeding them at stated hours, but fluttering above them, pluming their tender wings, and even bearing them on their backs until they had taught them to fly, and go forth into the wide world of woods and prairies, of lakes and rivers, to provide for themselves.

So the mother of Ulysses Grant taught him to depend on himself, while yet a boy. He was thus shown by a Christian pioneer mother how to practise true independence,—that self-reliance which is one of the great secrets of a useful life. It was this that

had carried his father, in his own younger days, from the fields of Pennsylvania to the broader acres of Ohio. This example of his father was ever before the boy, when with him; and the force of its influence was reinculcated by the mother in the precepts of home.

Mingled with her strong Grant had a quaint humor.

religious traits, Mrs. It frequently showed itself in the quiet ripples of her handsome mouth, even when it found no expression in words. Sometimes she would say to her boy,

"Ulysses, I mean you shall not come to a bad name, if I can help it. Your father has called you by a great one; and if you will follow the advice of your mother as well as that of your father, no one will ever call you Useless Grant."

By this time the good mother would be in a broad smile, which lingered like sunshine in her eyes after her words had died away. No stronger summons could start the boy to duty than the short call of the woman-pioneer,—

"Quick, my lad! They sha'n't call you Useless!" Inspiration to diligence, to obedience, to perseverance and success, thus came to young Grant from the charmed circle of home. He saw his father successful; he saw that success in part promoted by his mother. How could he fail, he asked himself, to succeed also, since he had their united examples and precepts to inspire him?