The Secret Son

GROVER CLEVELAND’S SECRET SON

By Trenz Pruca

Days after Grover Cleveland was named the Democratic candidate for president in 1884, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph exposed his damaging past. Cleveland raped Maria Halpin, a woman he lusted over, causing her to get pregnant with his child.

“I am very sorry to say that he is a corrupt, licentious man. He has never been married, and is notoriously bad with women. Cleveland is well known here, and it is a reproach to the city that he ever got into the Gubernatorial chair. I most sincerly and earnestly pray that he will not be our next President. His public life is revealing his true character.” - Pastor Henry W. Crabbe from Cleveland’s hometown.

Pastor Crabbe’s wish never came true however. Cleveland would go on to win the presidency by a slim margin. The Republican’s chant of “Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?” was answered by Democrats with “Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!”

But where was the child and Halpin? Through his political network, he threw Halpin into a mental asylum and her child into the orphanage, abandoning all sort of responsibility.

At the end of her life, Halpin’s last wish was for her funeral not to be public. “I dread that strangers will look curiously upon my dead face.” - Maria Halpin

Maria eventually remarried and remained out of the public eye. Cleveland also married, to his best friend’s daughter, Frances Folhom -- the youngest first lady in American History at 21 (27 years younger than him). Their son was eventually adopted by another family.

“Another Voice for Cleveland,” September 1884 (Library of Congress)

“I dread that strangers will look curiously upon my dead face.”

Maria Halpin

Maria Halpin pictured on the top. Grover Cleveland pictured below.