Grant was nearly broke and worried constantly about leaving his wife a suitable amount of money to live on. "The Century Magazine" offered Grant a book contract with a 10 percent royalty, but Grant's friend Mark Twain, understanding how bad Grant's financial condition was, made him an offer for his memoirs which paid an unheard-of 70 percent royalty. To provide for his family, Grant worked intensely on his memoirs at his home in New York City. His former staff member Adam Badeau assisted him with much of the research, while his son Frederick located documents and did much of the fact-checking. Because of the summer heat and humidity, his doctors recommended that he move upstate to a cottage at the top of Mount McGregor, offered by a family friend.