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Suggsville, Alabama

Nobody in Suggsville was surprised when Stephen Cleveland took off for California to look for gold. Fact is, most of his friends would have been disappointed if Stephen had not been a part of the 1849 gold rush.

“Just like him,” they said. “Let Stephen hear about any excitement going on, and he wants to be a part of it—even if he has to go all the way to California!”

Stephen didn’t get in on the first of the California gold fever because news of the discovery of the precious metal at Sutter’s Mill was a long time reaching the Clarke County town of Suggsville. It was several months after the discovery that Stephen Cleveland heard stories of the rich gold fields around San Francisco and of the men who were making fortunes there.

As soon as he heard those stories, Stephen was impatient to join the other prospectors heading west. He did not have to ask permission of anybody (he was twenty-two years old, a man grown), so he packed what clothes he figured he would need, tucked what money he had into a wide belt around his waist, and went to tell his family good-bye before he set out to seek his fortunes in California.

His father, James Cleveland, gave Stephen a few parting words of fatherly advice. He knew Stephen was not really listening, but he felt morally obligated to pass along some bits of wisdom to his son. James Cleveland was a staunch Baptist.

So, with his father’s advice and with the envious good wishes of his friends, Stephen Cleveland headed west to become a part of a horde of adventurers, many of them young men about his own age, willing to gamble all they owned on the chance of striking it rich in the gold country.

As James Cleveland watched his son ride away, he recalled earlier occasions when he had given unheeded advice to Stephen. For though Stephen had not been an obstreperous child, he was adventurous, headstrong, and reckless. It was Stephen who, though duly warned of the dangers by his father, climbed the tallest trees, rode the wildest horses, and swam the swiftest streams. He had an assortment of scars to show for his exploits, but he had no regrets. “You know I had to try it, Papa,” he would say when his father reproved him. “I was scared, so I had to do it. You wouldn’t want me to be a coward, would you?”

There was a time when Stephen, about ten years old, planned a reenactment of the Canoe Fight. He, of course, would take the role of Sam Dale, hero of the miniature naval battle. He cast his playmates in the roles of the other participants, though it took a fight or two to persuade some of the boys to play Indians, and he located canoes to use in the drama. The long overland march to the Alabama River was about to begin when James Cleveland learned of Stephen’s plans and ordered the group to disband.

“The river is too dangerous to play in,” he told them.

Stephen obeyed his father that day. But the following day, while his father was supervising some work on the far side of the plantation, he assembled his cast again and lead them to a creek. “Papa didn’t say anything about playing in the creek,” he assured them as he directed the mock battle between the boatload of Indian warriors and the heroes in the canoe.

There were some casualties in the make-believe war, nothing serious, but enough bruises, scrapes, sore heads, and wet and torn clothes to prompt parents to ask questions.

James Cleveland was furious when news of Stephen’s escapade reached him. But he forgave him, as he always did, and, later, he even laughed about the episode.

Joining the California gold rush was adventure tailor-made for Stephen.

Weeks and weeks passed with no word from Stephen, but nobody worried about him. He could take care of himself. Always had.

When Stephen got home from California, he looked taller and more muscular than when he had left, and he had a new air of confidence, the look of a man who had run into rough times and had dealt with them courageously. He wasn’t cocky, just self-assured.

He didn’t bring back saddlebags full of gold nuggets, but he did bring back a score of stories about the places he had been and the people he had met and the experiences he had had.

Stephen also brought back plans for a house.

“I saw a house I liked out there, and I had an architect draw me some plans for one like it,” Stephen said. “It’s a different kind of house, a good house, and I want one like it. You’ll see what it’s like when I get it built.” He made it plain that he did not want to show his plans or to talk further about his house. When friends asked questions, he replied, “Just wait until I get it built.”

It was a rather long wait.

Stephen Cleveland did not build his house until 1860. There were a good many other things he had to do first.

He had entered the practice of law, opening his office in Suggsville, and he had also become involved in politics. He campaigned first for some of his friends when they ran for office, and later he himself ran for the Alabama Senate and was elected to represent the Second Senatorial District (Clarke, Monroe, and Baldwin Counties). He resigned from the senate in 1861 to enter military service.

There were family obligations, too. Stephen Cleveland married Eliza Creagh, daughter of his neighbor Gerard Wathall Creagh. On August 6, 1856, their first child, a son named Walter, was born.

That son, friends said, completely changed Stephen’s life.

“Stephen acts as if he’s the only papa in the world!” his friends laughed. “To hear him talk, you’d think nobody else ever had a son. Nothing else is as important to him as that baby is.”

Stephen was, indeed a doting father. As soon as Walter could sit up, he took the baby on his horse with him and rode at a canter down the main street of Suggsville. He stopped frequently to introduce his son to friends along the way, to show the baby off. When they returned home, he handed the baby to a nurse and said to Eliza:

“You would have been proud of him—he never cried once! Rode as if he had been born in the saddle. He’ll have to have his own pony before long.”

Eliza smiled at her husband as she took the baby from the nurse’s arms. “Don’t hurry with that pony, please. He is a baby yet!”

Walter was still little more than a baby when his sister, Lillian, was born. As soon as he laid eyes on her, Stephen set out to inform everybody he met that Lillian was the most beautiful daughter a man ever had. He believed it, too.

But though he loved her devotedly and catered to her every wish, it was Walter who rode on his horse with him, galloping along the Old Line Road or trotting between the long cotton rows on the plantation; it was Walter who went fishing with him and who “helped” skin the deer he shot; it was Walter who listened to his stories and who learned all the verses of some rather risqué songs.

Sometimes Stephen expected too much of his little son. The summer he was almost four, Stephen took Walter to the creek to teach him to swim. The dark brown water frightened the child, and he cried.

“I’m scared, Papa,” he sobbed.

“That’s all right, Walter,” Stephen soothed him. “Don’t ever be ashamed of being afraid. You may be afraid, but you are not a coward. There’s a difference. Come here and let me hold you in the water.”

Before the afternoon was over, Walter was dog-paddling in the creek, no longer afraid. And very proud.

It was that same summer, the summer of 1860, that Eliza and Stephen’s house was being completed. Stephen had brought out his plans, had purchased the required material, and he spent much of the summer supervising the skilled artisans who did the work. The site he chose for the house was on land his wife inherited at her father’s death.

The house was, indeed, unusual. It was a one-story, L-shaped building only one room deep. Each of the rooms opened onto the front porch and the back porch, giving each room the cross-ventilation so welcome during Southern summers.

The porches were wide with cypress balusters, and the front porch had two sets of steps, one on the north side and one on the east. Those porches were perfect places for children to play.