Inventory of the Cleveland Family Collection, ca. 1650-1990 (bulk 1827-1869)

Accession number: 2000-0325H

University Libraries
The Pennsylvania State University
Special Collections Library
Historical Collections and Labor Archives

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Descriptive Summary

Administrative Information

Arrangement

The materials of this collection are arranged into three series: Correspondence, Ephemera, and Scrapbook.

The letters located in the first series, Correspondence, and the second series, Ephemera, are arranged alphabetically by subject, and chronologically within each folder. The photographs of the Ephemera series are arranged in original order. The Clevelands arranged the documents housed in the third series, Scrapbook, according to subject. The items within the scrapbook were not arranged in a chronological format; thus, time periods vary considerably.

Biographical Note

Rev. Aaron Cleveland, clergyman and father of Aaron Cleveland the II, was born on October 29, 1715, in Massachusetts, where he graduated from Harvard in 1735. Four years later Aaron became pastor of a church in Haddam, Connecticut. In 1739 he married Susannah Porter, with whom he conceived three sons. Aaron Cleveland became very devoted to religion, and subsequently relocated to Halifax, Canada, where he established a Presbyterian Church in 1750. In 1755 he temporarily moved to London to receive Holy Orders. He later returned to America as a missionary of the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He made his final home in Newcastle, Delaware, where he served as rector of a church. He died during a visit to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for medical treatment on August 17, 1757.

Rev. Aaron Cleveland II, poet, clergyman, and father of Rev. Charles Cleveland (known as "Father Cleveland"), was born in Haddam, Connecticut on February 3, 1744. Since his father died when Aaron II was only 13, he was unable to obtain a college education. Instead, he worked as an apprentice to a manufacturer in Norwich, Connecticut. In 1779 he became a member of the Connecticut State Legislature, but later refused re-election. Toward the end of his life, he became a Congregational pastor near Hartford, Connecticut. He married twice, and one of his sons, William Cleveland, born December 20, 1770, was President Grover Cleveland's grandfather. Aaron II also had a grandson named Arthur Cleveland Coxe. Aaron Cleveland II later became a Congregational pastor in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as in Vermont. During his lifetime, he published a number of sermons and poems, including "the Philosopher and the Boy," which won acclaim. In addition, he published a poem about the evils of slavery in 1775. He died on September 21, 1815.

Rev. Charles Cleveland, father of Charles Dexter Cleveland, was born on June 21, 1772 in Norwich, Connecticut. After taking a voyage with his uncle of Salem, Massachusetts, to the Cape of Good Hope in 1784, Charles successfully completed a mercantile apprenticeship. He later served as a deputy collector at the Salem customhouse until 1802. Charles then became a clerk in Charlestown for seven years; he next launched his own brokerage business in Boston, Massachusetts. He changed careers again to become a senior partner in the dry-goods firm of Cleveland and Dane from 1822 until 1829. Charles then returned to working as a broker for approximately five years, followed by his complete abandonment of the business world in order to devote himself fulltime to charitable works. In 1816 he organized the Society for the Moral and Religious Instruction of the Poor at his home. He also labored to collect funds for a mission-house, which was dedicated in May 1821. In 1830 he became a missionary to the Boston poor. Charles received a license to preach in 1835 and was ordained an evangelist on July 10, 1838. Throughout his life, "Father Cleveland" continued to engage in charitable works, including serving as the Chaplain at a House of Correction for both men and women. He married Mehitabel Cleveland and had two sons. Charles was quite fond of his grandson, Samuel McCoskry Cleveland, and bequeathed some personal papers to Samuel to preserve as a reminder of his grandfather's legacy. Rev. Charles Cleveland died on June 5 1872, just sixteen days short of reaching his one-hundredth birthday.

Charles Dexter Cleveland, father of Samuel McCoskry Cleveland, was born on December 3, 1802, in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1827 Charles Dexter graduated from Dartmouth College; five years later he became a professor of Latin and Greek at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. Two years following, in 1834, he accepted a position at the University of the City of New York to teach Greek, Latin, and Literature. From 1834 until he subsequently fell ill, Charles Dexter also taught at a young ladies' school in Philadelphia. He married Alison Nisbet McCoskry on March 29, 1837. Charles Dexter served as the U.S. consul at Cardiff, Wales between 1861 and 1867. He is widely known for his publications of numerous compendiums of English Literature, such as American Literature (1869). He also published copious textbooks, an Address to the Liberty Party of Pennsylvania to the People of the State, (Philadelphia, 1844), poems, and other varied works. Charles Dexter also is recognized for his antislavery beliefs and contributions, and served as President of the Antislavery Society in Philadelphia. He died on August 18, 1869 in Philadelphia.

Rev. Aaron Cleveland, Sr. (29 October 1715-17 August 1757) married Susannah Porter in 1739; their son, Rev. Aaron Cleveland, Jr. (3 February 1744-21 September 1815) married twice. Rev. Charles Cleveland (21 June 1722-5 June 1822) married Mehitabel Treadwell. Charles Dexter Cleveland (3 December 1802-18 August 1869 married Alison Nisbet McCoskry (d. 29 March 1899) on 29 March 1831. Samuel McCoskry Cleveland, M.D. (4 December 1841-23 November 1912) married Julia Conover. Arthur Cleveland, Ph.D. (18 February 1883-4 November 1949) married Alverta Marie Killen (b. 24 November 1887) on 26 April 1916; they had a daughter, Elaine Cleveland Rogers (13 October 1917-1999) and a son Samuel Mortimer Cleveland (18 May 1921-24 November 1951) who married Gabrielle M. Johnson on 30 January 1943. Samuel and Gabrielle had a son, Samuel Mortimer Cleveland, Jr. (28 July 1947- ). Treadwell Cleveland, Jr., writer and scholar, was Charles Dexter Cleveland's nephew.

Scope and Content

The documents of the Cleveland Family Collection consist of publications and other ephemera, correspondence, and a scrapbook filled with historical newspaper clippings, handbills, letters, and other materials. Relatives, colleagues, friends, and opponents of Cleveland Family members created these materials, many of which concern Charles Dexter Cleveland (1802-1869), an educator affiliated with the antislavery and other reform movements. Charles Dexter both collected and included the bulk of the materials within the scrapbook. He also contributed most of the correspondence. However, Charles Dexter's father, Rev. Charles Cleveland (1722-1822), a devoted clergyman and philanthropist, also generated a number of the collection's materials, such as his certificate of ordination, a publication called "Ninetieth Birthday Gathering," addresses, and a few letters.

This collection reflects the personal beliefs and activities of influential Cleveland family members, as well as a number of key events that took place during the antebellum reform period of the nineteenth century. The papers also document the Second Great Awakening, as revealed though the religious sentiment and rhetoric found mostly in the newspaper clippings. The collection chronicles the Cleveland family's lineage from 1715 through the mid-twentieth century. The various patriarchs of the Cleveland family were involved in countless charitable works; founded several churches and missionary societies; served in reform movements, such as prison and education reform; and engaged in the fight against slavery. Charles Dexter Cleveland's diligent and vociferous fight to end the "peculiar institution" is largely revealed in the thick scrapbook that he mainly compiled (The Scrapbook is the third series in the collection).

The scrapbook is the heart of the collection. It includes a variety of documents: newspaper clippings, biographies, graduation booklets, letters, a genealogy, speeches, announcements, and ceremony booklets. The newspaper clippings reveal the most detailed information regarding the beliefs and activities of Charles Dexter Cleveland, as well as his father, Rev. Charles Cleveland. Topics include: politics (many clippings chronicle Republicanism and the Whig party); an address to prisoners in a corrections facility that Rev. Charles Cleveland wrote in 1841; the activities affiliated with and support of the Pennsylvania Underground Railroad during 1857; education for both women and men, literature, compendiums, and poetry; Charles Dexter's support for the freedom of Africans enslaved on The Amistad; religion; and the Colored Population Bill (1842).

Numerous articles pertaining to slavery, which dominate the scrapbook, contend with the abuse and homicide of slaves; slaves' testimonials; slaves' intellectual capabilities according to whites; freed slaves; postings for runaway slaves; church and the religious instruction of slaves; antislavery societies; Pennsylvania and slavery; laws regarding slaves in various states; the slave trade in Washington, D.C.; a slave revolt in Charleston, S.C.; and the status of "colored lunatics and idiots" in the North. Articles regarding the rising conflict between the North and the South are also included, as well as the story of Rev. Charles T. Torrey, an abolitionist who abducted slaves to free them during the mid-nineteenth century; he was eventually tried and convicted for his deeds. Other issues included in the scrapbook deal with Texas and anti-annexation sentiment; the House of Corrections for Women; African colonization; freedom of speech; censorship of the press; and a reprint of a letter by John Quincy Adams. Still other topics involve the influence of abolition movements in the South; an abolition riot in Philadelphia; the Christiana murders of 1851; a public sale; the Civil War; censorship in Southern schools; the Philadelphia Women's Medical College; City Missions of Charles Cleveland; and Samuel McCoskry Cleveland's career.

Three additional documents that highlight the collection include a handbill for a morality play, called "600 Souls in Hell," which was performed at the Religious Theatre in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1831. The other two documents are a letter and newspaper clipping that Charles Dexter received in January 1861. The two items were inserted into an envelope that reads, "anonymous letter and enclosures sent me by some pro-slavery miscreant." The letter simply states, "Enclosed I send you a picture of Abolitionism of which you are a member counted in." The enclosed newspaper article, dated 1861, is a letter about slavery written by Hon. Charles Jared Ingersoll, who lived in Philadelphia and was a member of the Tammany Society of New York. He declares that, " . . . Abolitionists are not emancipationists, but land pirates, enemies of mankind, upon whom summary punishment ought to be relentlessly inflicted." Ingersoll derisively refers to abolitionists as sans cullotes. He also argues that John Brown not only represents the sui generis monster and the true "American traitor," but also calls Brown the " . . . the only genuine heroic Abolitionist . . . Sincere, earnest and determined Abolitionists, would, like Brown, march right upon the negro quarters, storm them, and covet martyrdom, however inevitable." The author argues that if Abolitionists do not devote themselves to martyrdom, than disunion surely will follow. The author of the attached letter to Charles Dexter signed his name "John Brown," and addressed the letter to "Sans-Culotte [sic] C.D. Cleveland, Citizen."

Primary source material inserted into the scrapbook include: poems; a letter that Charles Dexter wrote to the Editor of the National Gazette regarding Charles Dexter's support for freeing those captured and placed aboard The Amistad; an article by Charles Dexter regarding clergymen; a letter from Treadwell Cleveland, Jr. pertaining to law, dated 1869; a pledge signed by Charles Dexter to discuss the Missouri Compromise; writings by Charles Dexter regarding his stance on slavery during the 1850s; a picture of a woman; and an aged map of Cardiff, Southern Wales. Moreover, newspaper articles in the scrapbook clearly represent a vast amount of excellent primary source material.

The first series of the collection, Correspondence, mainly reflects Charles Dexter Cleveland's work on compendiums and literature, and his stance on slavery, as reflected in the letters that friends, colleagues, and relatives sent to him. Topics include publications and compendiums, morality, slavery, religion, the House of Corrections for Women, and education. Items housed in the second series, called Ephemera, include: a colonial era promissory note, dated Nov. 29, 1775; diplomas of Charles Dexter Cleveland (Dartmouth, 1827) and Elaine Louise Cleveland (Philadelphia High School for Girls, June 25, 1935); a steel engraving of John Cleveland (undated; he died in 1658) and two pictures of Charles Dexter Cleveland (no date); a property note (1760); a Pennsylvania loyalty oath (1777); a certificate of indenture (1773); and eight publications. The second series also features fifty-nine photographs of Elaine Cleveland Rogers and her parents.

*Please note that some of the genealogical dates in the scrapbook are incorrect. For example, the genealogical chart in the scrapbook dates Rev. Aaron Cleveland Jr.'s year of birth as 1766, whereas his year of birth was actually 1744, as noted in the guide's "Biographical Chart."

Index Terms

These materials are indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Pennsylvania State University. Researchers wishing to find related materials should search the catalog under these index terms.

Container List