Notes on the Scott-Grant House

The only time that Ulysses S. Grant can be confirmed to have resided in Georgetown is before he was president. Gen. Grant accepted Gen. Henry Halleck’s offer to use his home in Georgetown, D.C. on May 18, 1865, and was there, off and on until July 24, 1865, when Gen. Grant left Washington for an extended summer tour. He did not reside in Georgetown after that. (Chronology of Ulysses S. Grant’s life, extracted from the 31 volumes of the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, Mississippi State University)

From 1866 to 1869 Grant and his family lived at 205 I Street NW. From 1867 onward, the Grants spent their summers at a cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey, which had been put at their disposal by Philadelphia newspaper publisher George W. Childs, industrialist George Pullman, and bank magnate Moses Taylor. (John DeFerrari, “Douglas Row: The Lost Homes of Politicians, Generals, WarWounded, and Orphans,” Streets of Washington, March 13, 2018; William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography, 1981, pp. 232, 261)

If any president had favored Georgetown as a summer retreat, it would surely have been mentioned in the Georgetown Courier, a weekly newspaper that served the city of Georgetown from 1865 to 1874; its promotion of local interests was unflagging, and its editor lost no opportunity to extol Georgetown’s advantages. Instead, there is only this: “The president to be at Long Branch the coming summer.” (Georgetown Courier, April 22, 1871)

It also says something that Mary Mitchell––a careful student of Georgetown houses, and a close reader of the Evening Star and the Georgetown Courier––did not think the “Summer White House“ story merited inclusion in Chronicles of Georgetown Life, 1865-1900 (1986).

The only reference in the Georgetown Courier to the house at 3238 R Street appears to have been in 1871.“Thursday afternoon Thomas Dowling, auctioneer, sold at auction, on the premises, the brick dwelling situated on the Heights, adjoining the reservoir, and at one time occupied as a private residence by General Grant.“ The house was ”knocked down to Mr. Thomas L. Hume, for the sum of $15,900.” (Georgetown Courier, June 24, 1871; Rebecca B. Scott to T.L. Hume, for $15,900, DC Liber 657, f.445).

For the next three years Hume had a tenant: according to the directories for 1872-1874, this was James Plaister Harriss Gastrell, Second Secretary to the British Legation. When Gastrell’s tour of duty was up, the Courier contained the announcement of an auction of furniture “at the residence of Hon. J.P. Harris Gastrell, British Legation, Road Street, Georgetown Heights, being the House formerly occupied by President Grant.” A week later the house was advertised for sale or rent: “The very desirable Residence…formerly occupied by President Grant and recently by J. Harris Gastrell, of the British Legation…apply to T.L. Hume of Hall & Hume, Grocers, 807 Pa. Av.” (Georgetown Courier, April, 18, 25, 1874) (3238 R Street ceased being a rental in 1877, when T.L. Hume sold the house to Calvin V. Graves.)

It would have been more accurate to say that the house had briefly been occupied by General Grant. That this detail was still remembered in 1889 is clear: “The house is not ancient, however, and its chief interest to the public is that during the days immediately following the war Gen. Grant spent a few months under its sheltering roof. The writer of these lines remembers riding by it at that time and seeing him sitting in the yard with Gens. Rawlins, Sherman, Logan and other military heroes, almost hid by the cloud of smoke which each one was helping to make, for these were the days when the general smoked countless cigars.” Eight years later there was a fire in the house “formerly occupied by Gen. U.S. Grant.” But there was also this––”For Rent––The Old Grant Mansion, Georgetown Heights”––in 1887. (Evening Star, May 13, 1887, September 21, 1889; February 24, 1897)

A promotional folder of the Miller and Shoemaker Real Estate Company, issued circa 1903, also implied that Grant had owned the house. “After General Grant gave up his residence in Georgetown his mansion became the property of the Joyce family.“ (3238 R Street vertical file, Peabody Room, Georgetown Branch Library)

The press was still more or less in possession of the facts as late as 1932, when a gratuitous reference to “summer” sowed the seeds of future confusion. “Another residence occupied by Gen. Grant, which was probably used during the summer months before he became President, is at 3238 R street N.W.” The photo is captioned “Summer Home of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, 3238 R street northwest.” (John Clagett Proctor, Star Sunday Magazine, p.6, September 4, 1932)

By 1938, when it was asserted that 3238 R Street had been “occupied by President Grant as the summer White House,” a new story had taken root (Evening Star, March 20, 1938).

“So when the Washington heat became too uncomfortable President Grant adjourned to the nearby suburb, where a large rectangular brick structure at what is now 3238 R street was known as the Summer White House.” (Dudley Harmon, “Georgetown Invites Capital Public for a Visit to Its Historic Homes”, Washington Post, April 3, 1938, p.B7)

And that is the story that has prevailed since 1938––“From 1870 to 1874 it was known as the Summer White House” (The Georgetowner, July 2, 1970)––and it has even gone on to acquire something like the force of law: “during summers while [Grant] was President, the house then being known as the ‘Summer White House.’“ (94th Congress, 1st Session, House Joint Resolution 576, July 18, 1975).

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