II.

Early Life

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey. He was the fifth child of Richard Falley Cleveland, a Presbyterian minister, and Ann Neal Cleveland. Four years later the family moved to Fayetteville, near Syracuse, New York, where his father became pastor of the Presbyterian church. The young Cleveland attended the local school, and when he was 13 entered an academy in nearby Clinton. The death of his father in 1853 removed any hope Cleveland may have had of attending college. To earn his own way and contribute to his mother’s support, he went to New York City, where he worked for a year teaching at the state institution for the blind.

In 1855 Cleveland decided to go to Cleveland, Ohio, to look for work, but he got no farther than Buffalo, New York. There his uncle, a wealthy and nationally famous cattle-breeder, hired him to look after the herdbooks of his cattle company. After a year of this, Cleveland studied law in the offices of friends of his uncle and in 1859 was licensed to practice law.