Daniel Boone, Ulysses S. Grant and a Budweiser Tour - St. Louis

Wow.  You get off the interstate here in eastern Missouri and you not only get narrow winding roads, but the scenery was beautiful.  I have a problem with depth perception so sometimes the big old motorhome window made me a little dizzy on the road to Robertsville State Park where we would be staying the next 2 nights.  This is a beautiful park!  We picked the location because it was near St. Louis where we wanted to visit a few sites.

Our first stop was to head to The Historic Daniel Boone Home, operated by the St. Charles County.  And we had the best tour guide – Angela.  It was almost an information overload.  Mostly because I/we were struggling to remember details about Daniel Boone and why he wound up in Missouri.  

Hard to imagine that they built houses like this back in 1812!

Well here’s a synopsis.  He was born in 1734 in Pennsylvania.  He was the 6^th of 11 children.  In 1751 the family moved to North Carolina. As he became older, he started making a living by hunting.  In 1753 he met Rebecca Bryan and they married in 1756. They had 10 children.  Believe it or not, by 1765 the increased population in North Carolina made hunting more difficult.  In May 1769 Boone set off for Kentucky and walked through the Cumberland Gap for the first time.  In 1773 Boone set off again for Kentucky with a party of 5 families.  The group was attacked by Native Americans, killing 5 people, including Boone’s oldest son, James.  In 1775 he was hire to carve a trail through the Gap. His family then settled in the Ohio River Valley for the next 20 years.

Being restless, he again looked westward. In 1798 he sent his son Daniel Morgan to inspect the rumors about abundant resources of the Upper Louisiana Territory. In 1799 Daniel Boone and several of his children and grandchildren took out Spanish land grants.  Nathan, Daniel’s youngest son, settled on the site we toured. It’s about 5 miles from Daniel’s original site.  Rather than develop his own property, Daniel lived with his children.  The home Nathan build is 4 stories and is classic Georgian-style architecture, completed between 1816 and 1818.  We were blown away by it.  I guess I expected something a little remote log cabin.  The walls are 2.5 feet thick, local limestone locally quarried.

Daniel Boone’s bedroom in the house was where he died.  His wife Rebecca passed in 1813.  He moved in with Nathan in 1816.  He passed away in this room on Sept. 26, 1820.

The park moved in other historical buildings from within 50 miles of the house.  Each building dates back to the 1800s.  I strongly recommend a stop here if you’re in the area.

Some of the historical buildings that were moved in.

Pretty covered bridge.

Kitchen garden. Near the creek.

There's a spring here. Their water supply.

The Boone House

Daniel Boone's bedroom

Daniel Boone's bedroom

Check out those beems!

Did you know Daniel Boone and Abraham Lincoln were related?

Original butter churn

On Wednesday, September 19, we started our day by heading into St. Louis, destination Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.  It sure is fun, sometimes challenging, to remember any of this history.  I don’t remember getting all the details that I should have.  So here’s the scoop on Ulysses S. Grant.

He was known as the victorious Civil War general who saved the Union and the 18^th President of the United States.  Few know about his rise to fame or his personal life.  He first met Julia Dent, his future wife, at her family home, named White Haven. This is the tour we took.  The home commemorates their lives and loving partnership against the turbulent backdrop of the nineteenth century.

Their buggy

Our tour guide. By the way, tours are free.

Grant built this horse barn.

Even though they painted the house green, it was still known as White Haven.

Another tourist.....ha!

Chicken coop

Ice house

Beautiful butterfly!

The Grants were married in 1848.  They lived at this house between 1854 and 1859 with her parents. During the Civil War, Grant began purchasing White Haven and making plans to retire there. The 10-acre core of the original 850 acre plantation is now the National Historic Site.  Grant built the horse stable that is now the site’s interpretive museum.

So it was a toss up now.  Do we head to the Gateway Arch National Park and tour the new museum?  Or…..do we head towards the Anheuser-Busch historic brewery for a tour and lunch at the biergarten and a peek at the famous and beautiful Clydesdales.  We flipped a coin and decided we had had enough history over the past few days and we were ready for something a little low-keyed.  What a great tour!  And the Clydesdales were outstanding!  The St. Louis brewery site is the oldest and was based here because its access to the Mississippi River, the largest presence of German immigrants in the 1800s and the natural cave formations that were used to store beer prior to artificial refrigeration. 

When you walk in the door

The tour brings you by the Clydesdales

And inside the barn you find the groomers and a very well behave horse. Check out the tail and the mane braid.

Inside the barn. Our tour guide.

They splurged on the chandeliers

Ha! Look at me patting this big old horse!

Well manicured streets

It was soooo cold in here.  The bottom of the tanks are lined with beech wood.

So during prohibition, they made yeast. The elephant was that symbol.

Office building

We did snap a picture of the arch but opted to drive on by.  You have to park in a parking garage, it was hot, and we just really wanted to go back to the state park where we are camping and chill.

 

Graffiti wall right on the mighty Mississippi

And the arch!

The Mississippi

And the Arch

Next up on the road is the Abraham Lincoln Museum and Home, the covered bridges of Parke County, Indiana and a tour of the Newmar Factory to learn about how our motor home was built!