Buildings and Grounds: Grant House (Merritt Jones Tavern)

File — Box: 33, Folder: 17

Identifier: Sub-Series 5.39

Staff Only

Photographs: Grant House/Merritt Jones Tavern

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Scope and Contents

Grant House (Merritt Jones Tavern), 1834-1997. Not located on Berea College campus.

Dates

created: 1853-
Creation: Majority of material found in 1890-2000

Conditions Governing Access

Records may be accessed in the Special Collections Reading Room, Hutchins Library, Berea College, Berea, KY.

Extent

From the Collection: 64.00 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

Abstract

Merritt Jones Tavern / Wayside Tavern, US 421, Richmond, Kentucky; The Merritt Jones Tavern served as a temporary Confederate hospital after the Battle of Richmond in 1862; consequently, a small cemetery is located behind the log structure. U.S. government markers now identify eleven soldiers’ graves that were once marked by large slabs of fieldstone. Another event in Civil War history lends the tavern its local name, the Grant house. In March 1863 General Ulysses S. Grant and several of his men dined and slept here while enroute from Chattanooga to Lexington in order to board a train for Washington, D.C. Merritt Jones and his sons were away serving with the Confederate forces at the time his wife and daughters were forced to lodge Grant.