The Presidents at Christmas: Ulysses Grant
Historians note two important events concerning President Ulysses Grant involving Christmas. During his first presidential term in 1870, it was Grant signed into law the bill that had been introduced by Illinois Congressman Burton Chauncey Cook, making Christmas a legal holiday. The bill also declared that New Year’s Day, the 4th of July, and Thanksgiving Day would also be national holidays.
The other significant Christmas-related event involving Ulysses S. Grant was the naming in 1867 of a giant sequoia tree as the General Grant Tree. This designation took place two years after the end of the Civil War and two years before Grant was elected president. The tree is located in California southeast of Yosemite National Park, in what is now called Kings Canyon National Park, the approximately 2,000-year-old tree today measures almost 270 feet high, 40 feet across its base with a circumference of 108 feet. In 1926 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the huge sequoia the “Nation’s Christmas Tree.” Three decades later, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed the tree to be a national shrine and a living memorial to those who gave their lives serving the United States. Each Christmas, a wreath is laid at the tree’s base to honor the United States’ fallen war heroes.
In 1881, former President Grant and his family moved to New York City where they had purchased a home. The family’s entire portfolio was invested in a banking partnership whose funds were swindled by an unscrupulous investor named Ward, who duped Grant's son Ulysses Jr. (known as Buck) to use the Grant name to promote what was later discovered to be a pyramid scheme. Grant vowed to pay off the investors who had been cheated by Ward. He sold much of his civil war memorabilia and other assets, causing the Grants to be broke once again. In addition to the family’s dire financial plight, it was also around this time when Grant found out that he was suffering from throat cancer. To compound the family’s problems, on Christmas Eve in 1883, the former president injured his hip after slipping on a sidewalk that was covered with ice.
The other significant Christmas-related event involving Ulysses S. Grant was the naming in 1867 of a giant sequoia tree as the General Grant Tree. This designation took place two years after the end of the Civil War and two years before Grant was elected president. The tree is located in California southeast of Yosemite National Park, in what is now called Kings Canyon National Park, the approximately 2,000-year-old tree today measures almost 270 feet high, 40 feet across its base with a circumference of 108 feet. In 1926 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the huge sequoia the “Nation’s Christmas Tree.” Three decades later, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed the tree to be a national shrine and a living memorial to those who gave their lives serving the United States. Each Christmas, a wreath is laid at the tree’s base to honor the United States’ fallen war heroes.
In 1881, former President Grant and his family moved to New York City where they had purchased a home. The family’s entire portfolio was invested in a banking partnership whose funds were swindled by an unscrupulous investor named Ward, who duped Grant's son Ulysses Jr. (known as Buck) to use the Grant name to promote what was later discovered to be a pyramid scheme. Grant vowed to pay off the investors who had been cheated by Ward. He sold much of his civil war memorabilia and other assets, causing the Grants to be broke once again. In addition to the family’s dire financial plight, it was also around this time when Grant found out that he was suffering from throat cancer. To compound the family’s problems, on Christmas Eve in 1883, the former president injured his hip after slipping on a sidewalk that was covered with ice.