When Grover was about three years old his father received a call to the church at Fayetteville, a little village in Onondaga County, near Syracuse, New York. In 1841, the family journeyed up the Hudson River and then by canal packet to Fayetteville where they lived for nine years.

Grover’s father was a popular and successful preacher at Fayetteville while his mother was busy with bringing up a large family on a small income. Over the years Grover’s father had recurring health problems and along with the burden of his position he chose to accept the presidency at the American Home Missionary Society in Clinton, NY in Oneida County, at a salary of $1,000 per year, a sum considerably larger than the $600 per year salary he had been receiving in Fayetteville. In in 1851, he moved his family to Clinton where his eldest son finished his college education at Hamilton College. While they were living in Clinton, it was thought best for Grover to accept a position as clerk in the village store in Fayetteville at a small salary of fifty dollars for the first year, and one hundred dollars for the second year. By this he would not only decrease the family expenses, but add something to his family’s resources.

The Rev. Mr. Cleveland’s health did not improve while at his new position and he was dissatisfied with the continual absence from his family which his job required, so he accepted a call as pastor of the church at Holland Patent, another village in Oneida County, on Black River, about twelve miles from Utica. He again moved with his family in 1853, but he had preached only three Sundays in his new home when death cut short his life.

The loss of his father was a great blow to Grover and he had to abandon, for a time at least, all hopes of going to college while he was concerned with helping to support a large family. . His brother William had recently obtained a position as instructor at the Institution for the Blind at Ninth Ave. and Thirty-fourth Street in New York city. Here Grover likewise secured a job as book-keeper and assistant to the superintendent, though only sixteen years old. It was with the help of Augustus Schell, who was then president and leading trustee that the younger brother secured his position. Mr Schell would later become a friend and supporter of Cleveland.

But Grover retained this position only one year and then decided to set out for the Great West. He returned to his mother’s home at Holland Patent and borrowed twenty-five dollars from a neighboring farmer, who had been one of his father’s friends.

He also found a young friend, who was likewise interested in seeking his fortune in the West. They set out in the spring of i855, with the intention of going to Cleveland, Ohio.

On their way the two boys stopped at Buffalo to allow Grover to visit an uncle, Mr. Lewis F. Allen, a well-known farmer and author of the “American Herd-Book,” a yearly publication on short-horn cattle which he was then completing for that year. Mr. Allen questioned his young nephew as to his intentions, and found that he was on his way to the West, and was interested in becoming a lawyer.

His uncle pointed out to him the difficulties of such an undertaking, the disadvantages he would labor in a frontier town without even a letter of introduction, and made the proposition to him to remain in his house for a few months at least, and assist him in getting his book on short-horn cattle ready. In the meantime, perhaps he could find some opening in a law office in Buffalo. Young Cleveland took a favorable view of the offer, but said he could not accept it till he consulted the young friend who was traveling with him. The the next day he returned to Mr. Allen’s, his young friend making no objection to staying in Buffalo. There he found a home and a small salary sufficient for his necessary expenses. In a few months (August, 1855), through his uncle’s influence, he entered, at the age of eighteen, the law office of Messrs. Rogers, Bowen & Rogers.

Continued