The Bay State Monthly, Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884 | Page 2

was liberally educated, and, ardently devoted to the interests of the Church, he determined to take holy orders, and returned to England for confirmation therein. Coming back to America he settled in the ministry at East Haddam, Conn. Some fifteen years later, in August, 1757, he died, while on a visit to Philadelphia, at the residence of his friend, Benjamin Franklin, then publisher of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, who spoke of him, in an obituary notice in his paper, as "a gentleman of a humane and pious disposition, indefatigable in his ministry, easy and affable in his conversation, open and sincere in his friendship, and above every species of meanness and dissimulation."
II. Aaron Cleveland, born at East Haddam, Conn., February 9, 1744. He was a hatter by trade and located in Norwich, which town he represented in the Legislature, where he introduced a bill for the abolition of slavery, of which institution he was a determined opponent. Subsequently he became a Congregational clergyman, and a power in that denomination. He died at New Haven in 1815.
III. William Cleveland, second son of the above, a silversmith by occupation, also dwelt in Norwich. His wife was Margaret Falley. He was prosperous in business, respected in the community, and deacon of the church of which his father had been pastor for a quarter of a century previous to his decease.
IV. Richard Falley Cleveland, second son of William, born in 1804, graduated from Yale in 1824 with high honors. He, too, became a clergyman, having adopted the Presbyterian faith, and pursued his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, after serving a year as a tutor in Baltimore, where he made the acquaintance of Miss Anne Neale, daughter of a prominent law publisher of Irish birth, with whom he united in marriage after completing his studies, in 1829. He was located in pastorates, successively, at Windham, Conn.; Portsmouth, Va.; Caldwell, N.J., and Fayetteville, N.Y. Subsequently, moved by failing health, he sought a change, and, as agent of the American Home Missionary Society, located at Clinton. Two years later he returned to pastoral service, though still In feeble health, establishing himself and family at Holland Patent, a few miles north of the city of Utica. Here he died suddenly, a few weeks after his removal, leaving to his wife and nine children no other fortune than the legacy of an honorable name, and the enduring influence of a true and devoted life.
V. Grover Cleveland, third son and fifth child of Richard Falley and Anne (Neale) Ceveland, was sixteen years of age when his father died. The sad event necessarily marked a turning-point in his career. He was forced to look life and duty seriously in the face, and he proved himself equal to the emergency. It had been a cherished hope of his boyhood that he might secure the benefit of a classical education at Hamilton College, from which his eldest brother, William (now a Presbyterian clergyman at Forestport, N.Y.), had then recently graduated. But this was now out of the question. He had not only to provide for himself, but he felt bound to aid his mother in the support of the younger members of the family. The idea of the college course, for which he had partially fitted himself in the preparatory school at Clinton, was relinquished, and the battle of life commenced in earnest. He had already learned something of the lesson of self-reliance, having served for a year or more as a clerk in a grocery at Fayetteville, and he soon secured a situation as an assistant in the Institution for the Blind in the city of New York, where his brother William was then engaged as a teacher. Here he remained nearly two years, faithfully discharging the duties assigned him, and promptly forwarding to his mother such portion of his moderate wages as remained after providing for his own personal necessities. The situation, however, grew irksome. As the young man's capabilities developed his ambition was aroused. There was no way of advancement open before him here, and he felt that his duty to himself, as well as others, demanded that he make the best practicable use of the powers with which he was endowed. Returning home for a short visit, and taking counsel with his mother, he soon set out for the "West," the field toward which ambitious young men have turned, with hearts full of hope, for the last half century.
His proposed destination was Cleveland, Ohio; his cherished ambition the study and practice of the law. He was accompanied on his journey by a young friend of kindred aspirations. Arriving at Buffalo he called on an uncle, Mr. Lewis F. Allen, who had a fine stock farm, just out of the city, and who finally induced him to remain there, promising to