Article November 30, 1899 Issue

Miscellany

with contributions from William E. Curtis

There is a great deal of sentiment about Grover Cleaveland, which inherited from mother, and a religious vein, which comes from his father. Upon his writing table in the library at Princeton lies the old-fashioned Bible, with covers of black enamel, which was given him by his mother when he first went away from home. While he was President the little volume was always kept in the upper lefthand drawer of the desk which was presented to the President of the United States by the Queen of England as a memcuto of the Sir John Franklin expedition to the arctic region. At the top of the cover in a little space surrounded by an ornamental horder is inscribed in gilt the name "S. G. Cleveland," and upon the fly-leaf there is a line or writing in a neat, precise feminine hand, from which we learn that the book was a gift to "My son, Stephen Grover Cleveiand, from his loving mother."

Colonel Lamont says that he first saw this Bible on the table in Mr. Cleveland's law office in Buffalo, and other friends remember having seen it there. When Mayor Cleveland became governor the book was generally on the bureau of his bedroom. When governor was about to become President, Colonel Lamont found the little Bible in the President's rooms at the Arlington, and, handing it to Chief Justice Waite, asked him to use it when he swore the new chief magistrate into office. There were about forty thousand witnesses on the plaza in front of the Capitol when Stephen Grover Cleveland pressed his mother's gift to his lips, and before it was returned to him Mr. Middleton, the clerk of the Supreme Court, entered a record on the last fly-leaf that it was used to administer the oath of office to Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, on the 4th of March. 1885. William E. Curtis.
Chicago Record.

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