"The brother who settled in New England had two sons, one of whom removed to Michigan, the other to New York. From the family of the latter sprung the President."
The following epitaph immortalizes the memory of Colonel Aaron Cleveland, who is buried in the Congregational graveyard at Canterbury, Conn.:
"In memory of Col. Aaron Cleveland, who died in a fit of apoplexy, 14th April, A.D., 1785. Born 7th of Decr. 1727; on the 17th of June, A.D. 1782, when in the bloom of health and prime of life, was struck with a numb palsy; from that time to his death, had upward of sixty fits of the palsy and apoplexy. He was employed in sundry honorable offices both civil and military.
"Calm and composed my soul her journey takes,
No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches.
Adieu! thou Sun, all bright like her arise,
Adieu! dear friends, and all that's good and wise."
Rev. Aaron Cleveland, the Halifax minister, was the fifth son and the seventh child of Captain Aaron Cleveland. He was born in Cambridge, Mass., 1715. He studied and graduated at Harvard College, and was married to Susanna Porter, a daughter of Rev. Aaron Porter, of Medford, Mass., the same year, when but twenty years of age. Four years later, 1739, he was called to the pastorate of a congregation at Haddam, Connecticut, where he continued until dismissed for alleged heterodoxy.
A year later Mr. Cleveland was installed over a congregation at Malden. His views being there deemed too liberal, he was obliged to resign that charge also. This circumstance occurred in 1750, the same year in which he went to Halifax. Falling into disrepute once more, because of his too rapid advance in theological tenets, he was forced to give up the Nova Scotia pastorate. The same year, 1755, he removed to England. He subsequently disconnected himself from the denomination of his early choice, and took holy orders in the Church of England from Bishop Sherlock, of London, from which denomination he received the following commission:
"Charter House, July 1, 1767 – Good Gentlemen: The society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts have granted your request and appointed Mr. Cleveland their missionary in your church; but it is on the express condition, which is now a standing rule in their missions, that you provide him with a good house and glebe, and not less than twenty pounds sterling per annum, towards his more comfortable support. Heartily recommending you and Mr. Cleveland to God's blessing, I am, sirs, your very faithful, humble servant,
To the church wardens and vestry of the episcopal church of New Castle, in Pennsylvania."
Returning to America, he officiated at Lewes, Delaware, and at New Castle, Pennsylvania, until his death, which occurred suddenly at Philadelphia, August 11, 1757, while he was visiting his friend Benjamin Franklin, but two years after his removal from Halifax. The Pennsylvania Gazette, at that time owned and edited by Franklin, contained the following obituary – a sober paragraph amidst the bountiful supply of wit and ridicule with which that journal abounded.
"On Thursday last, the 11th, died here the Rev. Mr. Cleveland, lately appointed to the mission of New Castle, by the society for the propagation of the gospel. As he was a gentleman of humane and pious disposition, indefatigable in his ministry, easy and affable in his conversation, open and sincere to his friends, and above every specie of meanness and dissimulation, his death is greatly lamented by all who knew him, as a loss to the public, a loss to the church of Christ in general, and in particular to that congregation who had proposed to themselves so much satisfaction from his late appointment among them, agreeable to their own request."
During Mr. Cleveland's residence in Nova Scotia three children were born to him, they being the last of a family of ten. All these survived the father's death. The widow removed to Salem, Massachusetts, and there made a future home for her children and herself. Aided by a relative, Judge Stephen Sewell, Mrs. Cleveland supported her family in comfort and respectability until the time of her death, in 1788. Aaron (5th), who was also the fifth of the children, was born in Haddam, Conn., February 3, 1744. He lived in Halifax with his parents from his sixth to his eleventh year. He became a member of the legislature of Connecticut in 1799. Subsequently he followed the early calling of his father and became a Congregational minister, and was known throughout New England as a statesman, an orator, and a wit. Twice married, this Aaron (5th) was the father of William, one of fifteen children. Said William was grandfather to President Cleveland.
Aaron was a poet. He never claimed to be such, and the few verses that he allowed to find their way into print were published anonymously. Many of them have been lost. The authorship of others was never given to the public. A few, however, of his poetic word-creations passed into the possession of his grandson, the Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, of Hartford. Illustrating Mr. Cleveland's appreciation of personal merit and personal exertion over that of ancestry, we insert the following satirical composition from his pen:
"Genus et proavos et quod non fecimus ipsi
Vix ea nostra voco."
Four kinds of blood flow in my veins,
And govern, each in turn, my brains.
From Cleveland, Porter, Sewell, Waters,
I had my parentage in quarters;
My fathers' fathers' names I know,
And further back no doubt might go.
Compound on compound from the flood,
Makes up my old ancestral blood;
But what my sires of old time were,
I neither wish to know, nor care.
Some might be wise – and others fools;
Some might be tyrants – others tools;
Some might have wealth, and others lack;
Some fair perchance – some almost black;
No matter what in days of yore,
Since now they're known and seen no more.
The name of Cleveland I must wear,
Which any fondling too might bear:
Porter, they say, from Scotland came,
A bonny Laird of ancient fame:
Sewell – of English derivation,
Perhaps was outlaw from the nation;
And Waters– Irish as I ween,
Straight – round-about from —Aberdeen!
Such is my heterogeneous blood,
A motley mixture, bad and good:
Each blood aspires to rule alone,
And each in turn ascends the throne,
Of its poor realm to wear the crown,
And reign till next one tears him down.
Each change must twist about my brains,
And move my tongue in different strains;
My mental powers are captive led,
As whim or wisdom rules the head;
My character no one can know,
For none I have while things are so;
I'm something – nothing, wise, or fool,
As suits the blood that haps to rule.
When Cleveland reigns I'm thought a wit
In giving words the funny hit;
And social glee and humorous song
Delight the fools that round me throng;
Till