Wife of General and President Ulysses S. Grant Julia Boggs Dent was born January 26, 1826 at White Haven plantation near St. Louis, Missouri, the fifth of seven children. Her parents were Frederick and Ellen Dent, who owned about thirty black slaves; they refused to free them only when the law required it. From about 1831 through 1836, Julia attended the Misses Mauros’ co-ed, one-room boarding school in St. Louis. Growing up at White Haven, she fished, rode horses, and played in the woods. Image: First Lady Julia Dent Grant, 1870 Julia Dent met Ulysses S. Grant, whom she called ‘Ulys,’ who was a classmate of her brother Frederick at West Point; she was soon head-over-heels for Grant and agreed…
