Historical Name: Ulysses S. Grant
Common Name: Sycamore
Latin Name: Platanus occidentalis
Ulysses Simpson Grant, our 18th president, was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822. His father, a tanner, moved the family to Georgetown, Ohio. Grant entered West Point in 1839 and later served in the Mexican War. His military fame came later during the Civil War when, in 1864, following a bloody campaign south, he crossed the James River and laid siege to the vital railroad center of Petersburg. The siege lasted nine months and was the longest military operation of the War. Seven miles to the north, Grant established headquarters at City Point (now Hopewell) on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers. Lincoln visited Grant there in June 1864 and reviewed the Union troops. The yard of Ulysses Grant’s headquarters was shaded then, as it is now, by a huge sycamore. This tree grew from a seed collected from the high limbs of the Ulysses S. Grant Sycamore, and was planted into UCNJ’s Historic Tree Grove in 1997.
(text adapted from American Forests)