LEVI CADWELL GRANT BIOGRAPHY AS RECORDED IN: COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF TOLLAND AND WINDHAM COUNTIES CONNECTICUT. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS AND OF MANY OF THE EARLY SETTLED FAMILIES. PUBLISHER: J.H.BEERS & CO., CHICAGO; 1903 P. 680 LEVI CADWELL GRANT, now living retired in East Hartford, was one of the very successful farmers of the town of Vernon, Tolland county. He is a descendant of Matthew and Priscilla Grant, the founders of the Grant family in America. Laban Grant, second son and third child of Matthew Grant, was but a babe when his parents removed from Dorchester, where he was born Feb. 3, 1633-34, to Windsor, Conn., at the first settlement. He married Hannah Palmer. Laban Grant (2), son of Laban, married Hannah Bissell. Thomas Grant, son of Laban (2), married Elizabeth Rockwell. Samuel Rockwell Grant, son of Thomas, and the great-grandfather of Levi Cadwell, married Mabel Loomis. Sylvester Grant, son of Samuel Rockwell, and grandfather of Levi Cadwell, married a Miss Gilbert. Luther Grant, son of Sylvester, married Huldah Hamilton. The Hamilton family, of which Levi Cadwell
Grant is a member in maternal lines, is an old established one in Ellington,
and its history in this Luther Grant, mentioned above as the
son of Sylvester, was born in East Windsor, and there attended school until
he was about eighteen years of age. Married in Broadbrook, he soon after
moved to Harts Grove, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, where he took up a claim on government
land. After some two years residence he met with severe losses by
fire, and returned to Connecticut. A second experiment in Ohio settlement
was also followed by disastrous fire losses, and he again returned to Connecticut,
and settled at East Windsor, where his wifes father, Theodore Hamilton,
gave him the rental of a large farm, and there he remained for a number
of years. Luther Grant was a man of much ability, and though with limited
advantages, he made the most of them. After a time he took up the sale
of Yankee notions through Connecticut, making a specialty of
brooms. He was a man who was not afraid of hard work, and could accomplish
anything he undertook. For a time he To Luther and Huldah (Hamilton) Grant
were born: (1) Hamilton, a farmer in East Windsor, where he died in 1898,
was twice married, first to Eliza Moody and second to Eliza Allen, both
of East Windsor. (2) Frances married D. Wilson, and died in Arkansas.
(3) Huldah Ann died young. (4) Levi Cadwell is mentioned in full further
on. (5) Ianthea married Charles N. Young and moved to Deer Park, La Salle
Co., Ill., where he died soon after their arrival. She then married Caleb
Young, and is now located near Rantoul, Ill. She is the mother of twins,
Charles M. and Roestine. (6) Charles R. served in the Civil war from 1862
to 1865. At his first enlistment he was rejected as being under the prescribed
age. When he returned from the war he located in Boston, where he was long
express agent for the Boston & Albany Railroad, later becoming general
baggage master. Frequently he acts as conductor of the Raymond excursions
to the Pacific Coast and other points. He is married and has three daughters,
Daisy, Amy and Grace. His home is at Malden, Mass. (7) Roestine has been
twice married, and is now Levi Cadwell Grant was born in East
Windsor, Conn., July 4, 1837, and began to earn his living when a very small
lad. When his parents removed to New Hampshire he accompanied them, and
as his fathers health failed much of the burden of the farm labor
fell on him. Mr. Grant had but limited opportunities for schooling, but
what he lacked in the work of the schoolroom he had more than made up by
close observation and wide reading. Early in his life he showed native ability
and business foresight, and his career has been very successful. In every
situation in which he has been placed he has showed himself equal to the
demands made upon him. At the age of sixteen he went to Vernon, where he
worked for a time in the farming circles, and was then received into the
working force of the paper mill at Talcottville. When he was nineteen he
spent some months in Ohio, and then making a second westward trip from Connecticut,
went to Minnesota, stopping In 1862 he bought a farm property in the town of Columbia, which was flooded by the building of the Willimantic Linen Companys reservoir. In 1864 he bought a farm of 168 acres in the town of Vernon, on the Hockanum river. From that time he has bought and sold considerable property, and now has quite extensive real estate interests in East Hartford, Conn., and Springfield, Mass. In 1865 he raised his first crop of tobacco, and has developed extensive interests in this line. Aside from his very successful general farming, Mr. Grant has acted for thirty-two years as the local agent for the fertilizer firm of E. Frank Coe Co., of New York. In 1881 he built the substantial and elegant home where he lived until April 1, 1902, when, after disposing of his farm above, he removed to East Hartford, where he now lives. Mr. Grant is a staunch Republican, and cast his first vote for John C. Fremont, and he has always voted no license. He could never be induced to accept a position in the official service of his community, though he has often been asked to do so. Mr. Grant does not belong to any secret societies, and attends the Methodist Church. Mr. Grant was married March 16, 1856,
to Mary Elizabeth, a daughter of Gerard Abel and Eunice (Brown) Bascom,
of Columbia, Conn., and a The career of Mr. Grant is a singularly happy illustration of what push and energy, when conjoined with moral ideals and a noble ambition, can accomplish. Beginning with nothing, and fighting his own way, he has come to the front, and well deserves a prominent place in a list of the representative and successful men of Tolland county. Despite his years and wonderful energy, he is active in mind and body. Few men have gone through life as he, with the years of hard labor, who remain physically his equal at his age. His success has been of the kind that enables him to retain the respect and esteem of all, and he was fortunate in the selection of a wife who shares the credit of his success. Reproduced by: Linda D. Pingel great-great granddaughter of Cyrus White of Rockville, Ct. Biographies of Tolland County |