Grant was better known as Mike in Copake, New York, where he ran a dairy farm for 30 years. He grew up in the farm house his grandfather was born in and loved to listen to the stories his grandfather told, such as when his grandmother, Charity Ann, was kidnapped by the Indians. Grant graduated from Iowa State University in 1962, married and took over part of the family farm. He modernized the operation and became President of Columbia County Farm Bureau. He organized the North East Dairy Day in 1978. The Secretary of Agriculture and the Governor were principal speakers. He also served as Chairman of the Copake Methodist Church and the Millerton Coop.
As Farm Bureau President, he learned the first step in solving a problem is to get everyone to agree what the problem is. After he served on the State Resolutions Committee of Farm Bureau, he defined a problem. Because of how the law was written, farmers were not getting paid for their milk when milk dealers got into a financial problem. It was costing New York farmers millions of dollars each year. He proposed a priority lean law. Farm Bureau solved the problem by getting a law requiring better bonding of milk dealers. The State of Wisconsin passed a similar law. Photographed in 1979, New York Governor Hugh L. Carey (left) consults with Grant Langdon about State agriculture issues.
About 1980, Grant found himself, along with other business leaders, to be a target of a serial arsonist. He had three barns burned. The author took the lead in pushing for action. He established a reward fund and took out ads in the local paper putting pressure on the sheriff to act. His picture appeared in the New York Times when a reporter asked the sheriff if a fireman were a suspect, as the author suggested. A week later the sheriff arrested the authors’ 19 year old son and partner for arson. The arrest took pressure off the sheriff, but was devastating for the Langdon family.
Grant’s first book, Scandal in the Courtroom: Found Guilty without Trial, tells about life in his pleasant farming community when a serial arsonist terrified its people during the 1980’s and 90’s. The local sheriff seemed neither able nor willing to act when the author discovered a secret. The local sheriff seemed neither able nor willing to act when the author discovered a secret. The resulting conflict with the sheriff landed the author’s 19 year–old son, Frank Langdon, in court for burning their own barn. When a scandal was discovered by the district attorney, the charges were dropped and a cover–up began. In Federal Court, Judge Howard G. Munson slandered Frank. He ruled that a “voluntary statement” — which Frank was forced to sign — was a confession and did not allow the suit to recover damages. He made his decision final even though Frank was not permitted to testify.
Judge Munson’s ruling that Frank was the arsonist proved most damaging as the real arsonist continued setting fires. Grant wrote Scandal in the Courtroom: Found Guilty without Trial to clear his son’s name and had to publish it himself because it names people, dates and places. Learn what the secret was, how the scandal was discovered and how it was covered up. Because of this book, the story has gone unchallenged and the police harassment stopped, but the real arsonist has never been arrested. Judge Munson, with a life time appointment, decided to retire from the bench.
Grant relocated to Cincinnati, where he worked for several years at Lowe’s, but has subsequently returned to his home State of New York to live with family in Penfield.
Grant’s second book, Rebels of the North: How Land Policy Caused the Civil War, traces the origin of Livingston Manor through the conflict over land ownership that started in the 1750’s. The hard–won conflict of the rebellious New York farmers gave a legacy to the new generation moving west. They battled the plantation South over how the West would be developed. They wanted small individual farms, while the Southern aristocrats wanted plantation agriculture. Lincoln, a man of the northern frontier, won the Northern farm vote by proposing a Homestead Act. He signed the Homestead Act in 1862. Slavery was not the cause of the Civil War, but ended because of the Civil War.which is now available. His new work traces the origin of Livingston Manor through the conflict over land ownership that started in the 1750’s. The hard–won conflict of rebellious farmers was legacy for a new generation, ready to do battle with the plantation south over development of the Western Land.
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Available at Atlas Books |
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