thers counted for little in the
esteem of men as poor, as independent, and as aspiring as themselves,
memories faded and traditions were forgotten. It was esteemed a
condition of the equality which was the national boast that no one
should take credit to himself on account of distant ancestry. Not until
Abraham Lincoln had honored his name by his own nobility did anybody
think it worth while to inquire whether his blood was of the strain of
the New England Lincolns.

All that was known of the Grants in Ohio was that Jesse, the father of
Ulysses, came from Pennsylvania. Jesse himself knew that his father, who
died when he was a boy, was Noah Grant, Jr., who came into Pennsylvania
from Connecticut, and he had made some further exploration of his
genealogical line. But this was more than his neighbors knew or cared to
know about the family, until a son demonstrated possession of
extraordinary qualities, which set the believers in heredity upon making
investigation. The Grants are traced back through Pennsylvania to
Connecticut, and from Connecticut to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where
Matthew Grant lived in 1630. He is believed to have come from Scotland,
where the Grant clan has been distinguished for centuries on account of
its sturdy indomitable traits and its prowess in war. The chiefs of the
clan had armorial crests of which the conspicuous emblem was commonly a
burning mountain, and the motto some expression of unyielding firmness.
In one case it was, "Stand Fast, Craig Ellarchie!" in another, simply
"Stand Fast;" in another, "Stand Sure." Sometimes Latin equivalents were
used, as "Stabit" and "Immobile." It is said that, as late as the Sepoy
rebellion in India, there was a squadron of British troops, composed
almost entirely of Scotch Grants, who carried a banner with the motto:
"Stand Fast, Craig Ellarchie!"

If it be true that our General Grant came from such stock, his most
notable characteristics are no mystery. It was in his blood to be what
he was. Ancestral traits reappeared in him with a vigor never excelled.
But they had not been quite dormant during the intermediate period. His
great-grandfather, Captain Noah Grant, of Windsor (now Tolland), Conn.,
commanded a company of colonial militia in the French and Indian war,
and was killed in the battle of White Plains in 1776. His grandfather
Noah was a lieutenant in a company of the Connecticut militia which
marched to the succor of Massachusetts in the begin