Читать книгу Belford's Magazine, Vol 2, December 1888 - Various - Страница 8

President Cleveland's Great-Great-Grandfather in Halifax – "Mather's Church," the First Dissenting Meeting-house – Some Rare Antique Books – St. Matthew's Church – The Poet Cleveland and Others – A Poem – A Repartee.

On Pleasant Street facing Spring Garden Road – two aristocratic avenues of residence in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia – is St. Matthew's Congregational Church. To sight-seekers from "the States" who during the last three years have visited Halifax this ecclesiastical building has become a place of especial interest. An ancestor of President Cleveland was the first pastor of the society; and through the influence of Rev. Aaron Cleveland, the first non-conforming church in British North America was built. It stood at the corner of the present Hollis and Prince streets, upon what now is the site of the Halifax Club, a portion of the building being occupied by Doull & Miller's dry-goods store.

There the little structure remained for more than a century, although Mr. Cleveland's ministry extended over but five years, when, in 1755, the pioneer pastor removed to England, leaving behind him no church records. Hence the history of Congregationalism in Nova Scotia, during that period, is traditional. A few volumes, unique in style and huge in size, the nucleus of what to-day is the Church and Sunday-school library of St. Matthew's society, survived the pastor's departure. Many of the books were the gift of Mr. Cleveland. In some of them is preserved his autograph presentation. A large proportion of the other volumes were donated by friends of Mr. Cleveland, mostly residents of Great Britain. Of these the notable ones are:

A Large and Complete Concordance to the Bible, by Samuel Newman, now teacher of the church at Rehoboth in New England. London, 1650.

The presentation reads as follows:

"This book is the Gift to the present Minister of the Gospel at Halifax in Nova Scotia, and to his successors,

By their well wisher and Humble Servant

Nov. 6, 1750.

John Staniford.

The same date and wording of presentation accompanies

The History of Britain, 1655.

Bearing the imprint, London, 1684, are the

Works of the Rev. and Learned John Lightfoot; Late Master of Katerine Hall, in Cambridge. With Author's Life and Maps.

Also, illustrated with many fine engravings, are

The Works of the Learned and Pious Author of

The Whole DUTY of Man

London, 1704

The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. London, 1752.

The Works of the Rev. & Learned Lord Mr. Joseph Boyse of Dublin, Never before Published. 2 vols., London, 1728.

This last book was

"The Gift of the Rev. Mr. John Walker of London, to the Rev. Aaron Cleveland and his Successors in the Ministry at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, 1753."

St. Matthew's Church, called in early days "Mather's Church," was constructed after the same plan as Maryborn Chapel, England. This "Meeting-house for Dissenters" was put up in 1750, at a cost to the colony of £1000. In a letter dated July 10, 1750, to The Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, written by Hon. Edward Cornwallace, Governor of Nova Scotia, the "Meeting-house" was grouped as one of the "necessary works," with "a Court House and Prison, and a powder Magazine."

At the time of Mr. Cleveland's ministry in Halifax, "The Dissenting Congregational Meeting-house" was known as "Mather's Church." It derived its name from the then famous New England Congregational divine, Cotton Mather. The frame of the building was brought from Boston. Tradition erroneously says that the edifice was removed bodily to Halifax, and that it was the identical church in which Cotton Mather preached.

After the fire, January 1, 1857, that destroyed the original structure, the present St. Matthew's church edifice was erected. The building, which is of brick, is the best of its kind in the Dominion. Its cost of construction was $75,000. The manse was built at an additional expense of $12,000. The congregation is fashionable and influential. The Word is preached from an old-fashioned box-like pulpit, perched, like a bird's nest, near the ceiling. The minister reaches this enclosure by means of two winding stairways, curtained with red drapery along their sides. The pews are, as in ancient times, padded throughout with scarlet. British "red-coats" constitute a portion of the congregation. They occupy the high gallery that reaches around three sides of the auditorium. The Sunday-school is one of the largest and the best conducted in the city. The original silver-plate communion-set and the baptismal fount have been preserved and are used as occasion allows. These pieces are engraved with the follow inscription:

"The Gift of Francis White, Esq., to the first Protestant Dissenting Church in Halifax, Oct. 25, 1769."

A prominent officer of the St. Matthew's Society stated in the presence of the writer, "We have many proofs that the Lord has abundantly blessed the labors of the first minister, the Rev. Aaron Cleveland, … and we rejoice in the manifestation of His goodness in having raised his descendant to the highest honor in the gift of a free and sovereign people."

To the town of Cleveland, – "a corruption of Cliffe land," – Durham County, England, the family of Cleveland or Cleaveland owes its name. "The principal branch was seated in the county of York. Early in the fourteenth century, Sir Guy de Cleveland was present at the siege of Boulogne, in France, and afterwards at the battle of Poietiers, where he commanded the spearmen. A branch of the family went into Devonshire, and continued until the male line of the family was extinct."

The Rev. Aaron Cleveland, great-great-grandfather to the President of the United States, was the son of Captain Aaron, a grandchild of Moses Cleveland who came to this country from Ipswich, county of Suffolk, England, about 1635, and who died at Woburn, Mass., January, 1701-2. Seven sons and five daughters composed the family of Moses. From the eldest son, "it is confidently believed, are derived all the Clevelands or Cleavelands in this country, of New England origin." The other of the two brothers who came to this country settled in Ohio. One of them, General Moses Cleveland, was born 1754, in Canterbury, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College, and subsequently held a position as general in the regular army. Afterwards he practised law. As chief of the staff of surveyors commissioned by the Connecticut Land Company, he was sent to the Western Reserve, where he secured the confidence and friendship of the Indians by his tact and repeated evidences of friendliness. He established a surveying camp, laid out a city, and gave to it his name. It was to his memory that the Early Settlers Association of Cleveland, Ohio, celebrated the ninety-second anniversary of this event by unveiling, in the public square, the 22d of last July, a bronze statue of the city's founder.

"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.

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,

Philip Bearcroft.

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:

THE FAMILY BLOOD: A BURLESQUE

"Genus et proavos et quod non fecimus ipsi

Vix ea nostra voco."

As a wit, Mr. Cleveland's reputation has been immortalized by a few sentences that are frequently quoted, and which the writer furnished to the Editor's Drawer, Harper's Monthly Magazine, August, 1885. Mr. Cleveland was a Federalist of the school of Jay and Hamilton, whom he supported with more than ordinary zeal, and perhaps not without something of the prejudice which ranked all Jeffersonians with French fatalists and infidels. On horseback one day Mr. Cleveland was riding from Middletown to Durham; a little stream bounded the limits of the townships. He halted to water his horse; meanwhile a young man, having come from the opposite direction, drew rein so suddenly in the midst of the brook as to render the water unfit to drink.

"Good-morning, Mr. Minister," said the youth.

"Good-morning, Mr. Democrat," replied the reverend gentleman.

"And pray why do you take me for a Democrat?" queried the young man.

"Pray why did you take me for a minister?" rejoined Mr. Cleveland.

"Oh," said the fellow, "that is plain enough – by your dress."

"And that you are a Democrat is plain enough by your address," was the retort of the preacher.

Mr. Cleveland was buried in New Haven, Conn., where he died suddenly, while paying a visit to friends in that city. He lies in the "New Haven City Burial Ground," the first cemetery in this country that was divided into family lots. The plot in which Mr. Cleveland was interred was at that time owned by Edmund French. Recently it was resold to William Franklin, a proviso of the transfer being that all previous interments should forever remain undisturbed. Two massive stones, of veinless white marble, mark the head and the foot of the scarcely perceptible mound. They are low and unpretentious. The larger is about two feet in height; the smaller is proportionally less tall. Erected but a short time ago, it is said that President Cleveland ordered them that he might mark the last earthly resting-place of his great-grandfather. The inscription reads:

Rev. Aaron Cleveland

son of

Rev. Aaron Cleveland

Born in Haddam Feb'y 3. 1744

Died in New Haven Sept. 21. 1815

A much loved, and respected, and stainless name is the inheritance that this man has left to his descendants.