| Signature: | Appletons' Cleveland Aaron signature.jpg |
| Birth Date: | 29 October 1715 |
| Death Date: | 11 August 1757 |
| Church: | Presbyterian |
| Congregations: | St. Matthew's United Church (Halifax) |
Aaron Cleveland (29 October 171511 August 1757 Philadelphia) was a clergyman. He established the first Presbyterian church in Canada. He was a great-great-grandfather of United States President Grover Cleveland.
His father was also named Aaron Cleveland. At the time of the Aaron's birth his father was making a modest living as a publican in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Aaron was born, and also working in construction. His father would later become a militia captain and a man of some wealth.[1] The son graduated from Harvard in 1735. He was a man of great physical strength and activity, and the best skater, swimmer, and wrestler in the college in his day. In 1739, he was made pastor of the church in Haddam, Connecticut, where his father possessed landed property. In this year, he also married Susannah, the daughter of Aaron Porter of Medford, Massachusetts.[1]
The preaching of George Whitefield produced a great impression on his mind, and led to subsequent changes in his religion. In 1747 he moved to Massachusetts, where he was pastor of South Church in Malden until 1750,[1] when he took an active part in the emigration from New England for the settlement of Nova Scotia. At Halifax in 1750, he established the first Presbyterian church in Canada. The Scottish Calvinists became its directors, overriding the New Englanders, and in 1755 Cleveland went to London, where he received holy orders.
Cleveland returned to America as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. During the return voyage the vessel ran aground at Nantucket Shoals, and he lent his muscular aid to the sailors with good results, but a wave inflicted an injury upon his strong frame,[1] from the effects of which he never recovered. He was rector of the church in Newcastle, Delaware, but visiting Philadelphia for medical treatment, when he died under the hospitable roof of his friend, Benjamin Franklin. A tribute to his character appeared in Franklin's newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette on August 18, 1757:[2]
On Thursday last (11th) died here Rev. Mr. Cleveland, lately appointed to the Mission at Newcastle by the Society for propagating the Gospel. As he was a gentleman of humane and pious disposition, indefatigable in his ministry, easy and affable in his conversation, open and sincere in his friendship, and above every species of meanness and dissimulation, his death is greatly lamented by all who knew him as a loss to the Church of Christ in general, and in particular to that congregation who had proposed to themselves so much satisfaction from his late appointment among them, agreeably to their own earnest request.
Aaron Cleveland was the first minister for St. Matthew's United Church (Halifax) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[3] He is the great-grandfather of the president of United States, Grover Cleveland.[4]
While in England, Aaron Cleveland became satisfied that the original spelling of the family name was “Cleveland,” as he and his descendants have since written it, while other American branches of the family generally retain the form “Cleaveland.”
As noted above, in 1739 Aaron Cleveland married Susannah Porter, who in addition to being the daughter of Aaron Porter was the granddaughter of Major Sewall of Salem, Massachusetts. Among their descendants were: