GEORGETOWN, Ohio — Wildlife artist John Ruthven and his wife, Judy, will donate the Ulysses S. Grant Homestead to the Ohio Historical Society today.

        Manager Selma Brittingham hopes the state will build an interpretive center and provide more promotional clout.

U.S. Grant's boyhood home is being taken over by the Ohio Historical Society. There is renewed historical interest in the Civil War general who became president. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        “Since we acquired it about 20 years ago, it has been our dream to donate the building,” Mr. Ruthven said Wednesday. “It is only right that the home goes to the state. The place is such a treasure in the whole history of Grant. These days, a lot of people are interested in him.”

        The boyhood home in this picturesque Brown County village attracts about 2,000 visitors annually.

        “When we bought it, it was already on the National Register of Historic Places,” Mr. Ruthven said. “Judy is a real "Grantophile.' She spent a tremendous amount of energy on the place and got a lot of people to help her. Finally, it became a National Landmark, a very important designation.”

        Ms. Brittingham commended the Ruthvens for saving the Grant home.

        “They stepped in and took on a task that many people would never consider,” she said. The brick homestead, built by Grant's father from 1823-28, is a story-and-a-half. One building of the elder Grant's tannery remains across the street.

        “He did live in the house longer than in any other,” she said.

        Mr. Ruthven wants to promote “a cohesion of Grant” — the area where U.S. Grant grew up in the early 1800s. It includes Maysville, Ky., and Ripley, Ohio, where the future president attended school; Georgetown, where he spent his boyhood and went to school; Point Pleasant, where he was born.

        Ms. Brittingham said Grant's popularity has risen recently with a PBS special about his life and several new biographies.

        “People realize that Grant was a true, quiet hero who ended that (Civil) war a long time before it might have ended,” she said.

        After the property is transferred in a public ceremony at 11 a.m. today, the building will be locally operated through the U.S. Grant Homestead Association and owned by the state.

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