The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-06-13
THE NOMINEE.
Outline of the Career of Grover Cleveland
From Boyhood to Presidency.

THE NOMINEE.
Outline of the Career of Grover Cleveland
From Boyhood to Presidency.
Down in the obscure town of Caldwell,
Essex county, New Jersey, there stands a
| little two-story and a half white house
with wooden shutters, and there in the
year 1887, was born Stephen Grover
Cleveland. He has only the most shadowy
recollections OF it, for when he was three
! years of age his father, who was a presby
terrain minister, with large family and a
small salary, moved by way of the Hudson
river and Erie canal to Fayetteville, in
search of an increased income and larger
field of work. Fayetteville was then the
most. struggling of country villages
about five miles from Pompey
Hill, where Gov. Seymour was born.
Here the boy Grover Cleveland first went
to school in the good, old-fashioned way,
and presumably distinguished himself
in doing the things that he ought not to
| do. One thing appears to be indisputable.
| He, at the age of fourteen, had outgrown
! the capacity of the village school and ex-
/ pressed a most emphatic desire to be sent
to an academy. To this his father as en-
! phatically objected. Academies in those
DAYS cost money. Besides, the elder
4 Cleveland wanted the lad to become self
supporting by the quickest possible road.
! The quickest possible road in Fayetteville
was the country store, where the pastor,
with alarge family, had considerable in
fuence. Fifty dollars was to be paid the
boy the first year, and if he proved trust
worthy, he was to receive 500 the second
year. One can easily enough picture the
employment ii one knows what a
thriving country store is, its
| duties ranging, with scarcely
/ time Tor intermediate soap and water, from
dealing out mackerel and molasses to cut
! ting OFT cotton print enough for the viii
lage bellies new dress. There Is a tradi-
| ton comes from Fayetteville, not at all
| ill-defined, that young Cleveland in two
/ years proved himself so trustworthy that
/ his employers used all their elOquence to
1 get him to stay on indefinitely. The exact
/ significance at this time of the Fayetteville
record may be judged when the writer
/ after taking some trouble to unearth it
/ finds il to be a record of simple, unswerv-
| ing integrity and untiring loyalty to the
/ interests of the boys employers. The most
painstaking search among two genera
tons fails to discover any flashes of
/ genius in that country store or any me-
MORALS OF eccentric talent in that country
village. But there is unimpeachable tes-
/ timony that whatever the boys hand was
/ given to do he did with all his heart, and
/ that he left behind him the reputation for
/ bravery, fidelity and candor that has out
! lived all these years. 1t is curious how
some simple traits defy time. In truth,
they seem to thrive and grow with it.
! The removal of the elder Cleveland to
| Clinton gave Grover the long-wished-for
| opportunity to attend high school, and
| he pursued his studies industriously until
/ the family moved up on the Black river to
what was then known as the Holland
! Patent-a village OF 500 or 600 people
/ fifteen miles north of Utica The elder
! Cleveland preached but three Sundays in
this place, when he suddenly died Grover
first heard of his fathers death while
walking with his sister in the streets of
! Utica. This event produced the usual
/ breakup of the family, and we next hear
| of Grover Cleveland setting out for New
! York City to accept, at small salary, the
! position of under-teacher in an asylum for
the blind.
He stayed here two years, and it has
/ been found possible to discover the same
/ indelible record of hard work, faithfully
/ performed and we'll remembered by those
] who were cognizant of it, and who are still
/ alive. From tending country store to
teaching the blind is a long way on the
road of self-discipline. But to teach he
! did not believe was his mission, and con-
sequently, at the expiration of two years,
! he abandoned it and literally started out
| to seek his fortune-onlv reversing the
usual order, and instead of coming to the
] great city, he left it. His first idea was to
/ 90 to Cleveland. As he has since said,
! the name seemed good omen. But his
uncle Lewis T. Allan, a noted stock
/ breeder, lived at Buffalo, and he went
straight to him for advice and guidance.
The uncle didnot speak enthusiastically
What is it you want to do, my boy"
he asked.
-''Well, sir, want to study law"
Good gracious~ remarkedthe old gen.
| tleman. DO you, indeed?" What ever
! put that into your head2 How much
money have you got?"
To tell the truth, he hadn't got any.
"See here" said the uncle, after a long
consultation, 81 want somebody to get up
my herd-book this year. You come and
stay with me and help me, and III give
you $50 for the years work, and you can
| look round"
Here it is that we find the American boy
now annotating short-horns out at Black
| Rock, quite two miles from Buffalo But he
| kept lis eye OUT IOT Il CuduCe 10 enteT a
i law office while he was editing the stock
| book, and one day he walked boldly into
the rooms Of Messrs. Rogers, Bowen &
Rogers and told them what he wanted.
| There were a number of young men in
the place already. But young Cleve-
lands persistency won, and he was
finally permitted to come as an office
boy and have the use of the law
library. For this he received the nominal
sum of 50 or 81 a week, out of which he
had to pay his board and washing. The
walk to and from his uncle's was a long
and at that time a rugged one. The first
winter was memorably severe one, and
his shoes were broken and he had no over
coat. But he never intermitted day. 1t
began to be noticed that he was the most
punctual and regular of the lads in the
Office. Often at night he was compelled
to stand by the warm chimney in the loft
where he slept and dry his feet after
tramping the two miles through the snow.
His senior employer had taken a copy of
Blackstone on the first day of the boys
Office experience and, planting it before
him with bang that made the dust fly,
said: 'That's where they all begin"
There was litter ran round the little cir
Gle of clerks, for it was foreboding thing
to begin with to the average lad. 1t APP
pears, however, that he stuck to the Black
stone so well that he mastered it, and so
absorbed was he in it one night that they
locked him in and all went off He spent
l.