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By Root 1802 0

as the definitive Cleveland biography. Every subsequent Cleveland book has trod the path he set down. But as we have seen, this time-honored version of the scandal borders on being a fairy tale. And the falsehoods continue to this day. In 2008, when the tabloid National Enquirer revealed that a love child had been born to Rielle Hunter and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, New York Times columnist Gail Collins noted how it was “weirdly reminiscent” of what Grover Cleveland had experienced, in that a “scurrilous newspaper from his hometown of Buffalo accused him of being the father of a love child born to Maria Halpin, a store clerk. She later took to drink, and Cleveland, a bachelor, arranged to have the baby adopted by friends.

“It probably wasn’t Cleveland’s child. . . . But Cleveland stolidly refused to defend himself . . . ”

Gail Collins does not merit any blame for recapitulating this fundamentally dishonest account of the Halpin scandal. It is, after all, how so many esteemed historians have presented it. It is said that history is written by the victors, which certainly holds true in the defamation of Maria Halpin.

In October 1946, an extraordinary spectacle took place in Princeton, New Jersey. Under a brilliant October sun, several hundred of the world’s leading scholars, dressed in vividly colored academic robes representing the foremost universities in the United States and Europe, paraded through the campus of Princeton University. It was Princeton’s bicentennial celebration, and in the long line of intellectuals who were to receive honorary degrees in science, law, and letters were some of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. The Danish physicist Niels Bohr was there. So was Trygve Lie, the secretary-general of the United Nations, and the Nobel Prize–winning chemist Linus Pauling.

At a dinner celebrating the event, President Harry Truman, his daughter Margaret, and the new army chief of staff, General Dwight David Eisenhower, were all seated at the head table, along with another dignitary—a white-haired old lady nearing the end of her days. Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston had been diagnosed with cataracts, and she was told that she might lose her sight. She accepted her fate and had begun to learn Braille and prepare herself for progressive blindness when an operation mercifully restored her vision. Time had ravaged the former First Lady of the United States, although it could not erase the essence of her graciousness. Even in old age, she remained a beautiful and self-assured woman.

Mrs. Preston was introduced to General Eisenhower. It was sometimes forgotten that Mrs. Preston had once been Mrs. Grover Cleveland. At some point during their conversation, she remarked that she had once lived in Washington. Eisenhower was intrigued.

“You did?” he asked. “Where?”

One year later, Frances died in her sleep.

EPILOGUE

AND SO WE come to the fate of Oscar Folsom Cleveland, the bastard child of Grover Cleveland and Maria Halpin. For more than a century, mystery has shrouded his life story. One enduring myth was that he became an alcoholic and died homeless somewhere in upstate New York. The truth of what happened to Oscar can at last be answered in this book.

Records show that Oscar was born September 14, 1874, at a hospital for unwed mothers. At age two, he was taken by force from his mother’s arms and thrown into an orphanage. Although his formal legal adoption papers have been sealed in perpetuity, we know from contemporary accounts that he was taken in by the physician James E. King and his wife Sarah. They gave Oscar a new name—James E. King Jr.—and raised him in a fine house with a picket fence at 93 Niagara Street in Buffalo.

James E. King Jr.’s life after that was exceptional and productive. Like his adoptive father, he became a doctor. In 1896, he graduated from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and then pursued postgraduate studies in Munich, London, and Dresden. When he returned to Buffalo in 1898, he became a pioneer in the field of gynecology when it was