Mount McGregor, New York: U.S. Grant's Death House and "Last View" Marker

The Grant Cottage is unquestionably one of the more unique presidential attractions. Driving up the winding road to the mountain top, visitors pass by a series of abandoned prison buildings enveloped by barb wire fences. A defunct guard tower overlooks the dark yellow cottage where Ulysses S. Grant toiled to complete his memoirs before his death.

Many artifacts remain from the dying president's stay, including his hat and nightshirts, a bottle of the cocaine-water mixture that was applied to his cancerous throat, and eerily decayed floral arrangements from his passing over 134 years ago.

In the same room as Grant's deathbed is a copy of his death mask and the clock that was stopped at the moment he expired. The experience is simultaneously unsettling and comfortingly intimate.

President Ulysses S. Grant spent his last few weeks at the Grant Cottage in Mount McGregor, finishing up his memoirs. He died here shortly after completing them. Visitors can step into the room and see the bed in which President Grant died. Near the house, a stone marker indicates the site where Grant had his last view of the valley.