[2] Grant was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on September 26, 1853.

[1] Grant was educated in the Lowell, Massachusetts public schools.

[1] In 1879 in Chicopee, he married Annie M. Vanzandt (1854–1934), original from Rome, New York.

Grant went to work in the cotton mills of Lowell while he was still young, and aside from two and a half years working in a Lowell machine shop, he spent his business career in the cotton business.

[1] In March 1878 Grant moved to Chicopee[1] where he went to work for the Dwight Manufacturing Company.