22. & 24. Grover Cleveland
The son of a Presbyterian minister, Grover Cleveland was born March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey, in the manse of the First Presbyterian Church. The family moved to Fayetteville, New York, when Cleveland was four and, when he was thirteen, they relocated again, this time to Clinton, New York. One of nine siblings, Cleveland loved the outdoors and fishing in particular, and he worked as a youth along the Eerie Canal. To help supplement the family income, Cleveland left school and home at fourteen and worked as a clerk in a general store. At the age of sixteen, shortly after his father died, Cleveland worked for a year at a school for the blind in New York City before he moved to Buffalo and studied law. Cleveland’s birth home, a two-story frame structure built in 1832 and expanded over the years, is now a New Jersey State Historic Site.
--Andrew B. Leiter
The Cleveland home is the only site I have photographed at night and one of a hand-full of sites that Andy and I have visited together. It was a cold, rainy evening when we arrived in Caldwell and decided to stop by the home before finding our hotel. The house was lit up by a few spotlights, but the combination of cold and rain didn't do much for picture taking! It is a grand home and original at its core. The next morning, we toured the home, but the weather wasn't much better--cold, overcast, and very dreary. I made use of the weather as best I could and couldn't resist the weathered texture of one of the chairs in the house dating back to the Cleveland era of the home.