A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [0]
The Sex, Lies, and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland
Charles Lachman
Copyright © 2011 by Charles Lachman
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on file
9781616082758
Printed in the United States of America
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHARLES LACHMAN IS the author of The Last Lincolns: The Rise & Fall of a Great American Family and In the Name of the Law. He is the executive producer of the television program Inside Edition.
No matter what, tell the truth.
—Grover Cleveland, 1884
I do not want strangers to come and gaze upon my face. Let everything be very quiet. Let me rest.
—Maria Halpin, on her deathbed, leaving instructions for her funeral
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
1 - BUFFALO
2 - THE BACHELOR
3 - MARIA
4 - “WITHOUT MY CONSENT”
5 - THE ORPHAN
6 - PATH TO THE PRESIDENCY
7 - THE GODDESS
8 - STIRRINGS OF A SCANDAL
9 - “A TERRIBLE TALE”
10 - DEFAMED
11 - FINDING MARIA
12 - “A BULLET THROUGH MY HEART”
13 - THE AFFIDAVIT
14 - PRESIDENT-ELECT
15 - ROSE
16 - THE BRIDE
17 - DEATH OF A NEWSPAPER
18 - THE TRIAL
19 - KEEPER OF THE FLAME
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTES
INDEX
PROLOGUE
THE CHILD WAS born on September 14, 1874, at the only hospital in Buffalo, New York, that offered maternity services for unwed mothers. It was a boy, and though he entered the world in a state of illegitimacy, a distinguished name was given this newborn: Oscar Folsom Cleveland.
His mother was Maria Halpin, a shopgirl. His father was Grover Cleveland, ten years away from being elected president of the United States.
Two days after the birth, Dr. James E. King, who delivered Oscar, wrapped the baby in a swathing blanket and went by carriage to the apartment of his sister-in-law, Minnie Kendall.
Dr. King would not say who the baby was or how he came to be in his possession, but told Mrs. Kendall that he was going to leave the infant with her. The understandably bewildered Mrs. Kendall was pregnant herself; her due date was any day now. How was she going to explain the sudden appearance of a baby to her neighbors? Dr. King suggested that she tell everyone she had had twins.
Something else was bothering her. The baby had a sore on the top of his head. It looked like an open wound.
“I don’t want to take it,” she said.
Dr. King knew that Minnie Kendall and her husband, William, a horse car conductor, were strapped for cash. They had been living on a farm in Kansas before coming to Buffalo four years earlier. Now here they were, in a shabby apartment near the stockyards, with a baby on the way. Her overbearing brother-in-law told her in so many words that she had to take care of this newborn and also be his wet nurse, and she would be paid for it.
Mrs. Kendall, seeing that Dr. King would not take no for an answer, asked him what to call the baby. Jack, he told her.
Dr. King had brought the newborn’s clothes with him, and Mrs. Kendall saw that his blanket and all of his outfits were monogrammed “M. H.” There were also several handkerchiefs bearing the name “Maria Halpin.” Dr. King scooped it all up and told Mrs. Kendall he was taking it back and she would have to replace everything. Before he left, he made it clear to her that the infant and their