John T. Grant

Who was John T. Grant?

John Thomas Grant was an American railroad man.

He was born and raised on a farm near Athens, Georgia and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1833 with a degree in Forestry.

With his brother James and the unrelated Lemuel Grant he founded an engineering firm which constructed railroads in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, during which time he amassed a large fortune and enormous tracts of land.

The calamity of the American Civil War largely destroyed his prospects. Although, at the time of his death some 20 years later, he still possessed 60,000 acres in Texas.

He lies in the Grant mausoleum in Oakland Cemetery.