WCHS Local History Book Club

Washington County Historical Society’s Local History Book Club will meet from noon until 1 PM on Friday, June 9, at the Ulysses S. Grant Cottage State Historic Site, 1000 Mount McGregor Road, Gansevoort. Washington County Historical Society membership is not required for participation.

The discussion will focus on the last weeks of President Grant’s life, spent at Mount McGregor writing his two-volume memoirs. Grant’s Final Victory, by Charles Flood, is the recommended book. Alternative reading would be any biography of President Grant.

The book discussion will be held under a tent, after which attendees may tour the Visitor Center exhibits, view the interpretive panels, and walk the nature path that dying President Grant walked with his wife. Grant’s Cottage is undergoing renovations and will not be available for an inside tour.

Next Month:
The group meets on the second Friday of the month at noon, usually at the Historical Society, 167 Broadway in Fort Edward. The July meeting will focus on Townsend Harris’s role in American trade with Japan. Harris was born and educated in Sandy Hill.

Future sessions of the club will include books about the larger Adirondack area as well as works by local authors. Proposed topics include one-room schoolhouse education, Andrew Carnegie’s role in the creation of Mountainside Library, and apple-growing in Washington County. For additional information, email Connie Harris Farrington at connieandlee@roadrunner.com.