History
The Elihu Root House was also known as the Grant House due to the marriage between Root's daughter, Edith, and Ulysses S. Grant III. The Grants lived in the house after Root's death.
The main part of the Federal style house was built in 1817 as a home for a Hamilton College professor. By the time Elihu Root purchased the house in 1893, there had been many additions and modifications to the structure. A long dormitory had been added during the house's stint as a college boardinghouse. Victorian porches and a staircase were added. The wing to the east was increased from one story to two. After Mr. Root acquired the house, he replaced the Victorian porches with ones more suited to the house. He also had built the portico on the east side of the house and servants quarters at the rear of the building. Mr. Root considered the house his home until his death in 1937.
It was named to the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1972, at which time it was still owned by Root's descendants.,
The Elihu Root House is located on the campus of Hamilton College, an institution with which Root was affiliated throughout his life. The house was acquired by Hamilton College in 1979.
Read more about this topic: Elihu Root House
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)