Harvey! It’s my baby’s picture!”
Cassie and the other children came running to see what was happening.
“It’s Harvey!” they said. “Harvey. Just like he looked.”
“And look,” Cassie said, “look how his dress has fallen around his shoulders. And look around his neck—that’s my heart-shaped locket, the one I put on him!”
After the family had seen the negative with the likeness of Harvey on it and after he had told the story of how he had made the picture, Jacob Hammer took the glass plate back to the photographer in Talladega to have prints made from it.
Three of those prints made in the fall of 1898 still exist. Each one, though faded by time, shows quite distinctly the head and shoulders of a beautiful blond child with wandering eyes that seem to peer into another world. The lace-trimmed collar of his white garment has slipped down around his shoulders. And round his neck hangs a gold, heart-shaped locket.
3
Suggsville, Alabama
Nobody in Suggsville was surprised when Stephen Cleveland took off for California to look for gold. Fact is, most of his friends would have been disappointed if Stephen had not been a part of the 1849 gold rush.
“Just like him,” they said. “Let Stephen hear about any excitement going on, and he wants to be a part of it—even if he has to go all the way to California!”
Stephen didn’t get in on the first of the California gold fever because news of the discovery of the precious metal at Sutter’s Mill was a long time reaching the Clarke County town of Suggsville. It was several months after the discovery that Stephen Cleveland heard stories of the rich gold fields around San Francisco and of the men who were making fortunes there.
As soon as he heard those stories, Stephen was impatient to join the other prospectors heading west. He did not have to ask permission of anybody (he was twenty-two years old, a man grown), so he packed what clothes he figured he would need, tucked what money he had into a wide belt around his waist, and went to tell his family good-bye before he set out to seek his fortunes in California.
His father, James Cleveland, gave Stephen a few parting words of fatherly advice. He knew Stephen was not really listening, but he felt morally obligated to pass along some bits of wisdom to his son. James Cleveland was a staunch Baptist.
So, with his father’s advice and with the envious good wishes of his friends, Stephen Cleveland headed west to become a part of a horde of adventurers, many of them young men about his own age, willing to gamble all they owned on the chance of striking it rich in the gold country.
As James Cleveland watched his son ride away, he recalled earlier occasions when he had given unheeded advice to Stephen. For though Stephen had not been an obstreperous child, he was adventurous, headstrong, and reckless. It was Stephen who, though duly warned of the dangers by his father, climbed the tallest trees, rode the wildest horses, and swam the swiftest streams. He had an assortment of scars to show for his exploits, but he had no regrets. “You know I had to try it, Papa,” he would say when his father reproved him. “I was scared, so I had to do it. You wouldn’t want me to be a coward, would you?”
There was a time when Stephen, about ten years old, planned a reenactment of the Canoe Fight. He, of course, would take the role of Sam Dale, hero of the miniature naval battle. He cast his playmates in the roles of the other participants, though it took a fight or two to persuade some of the boys to play Indians, and he located canoes to use in the drama. The long overland march to the Alabama River was about to begin when James Cleveland learned of Stephen’s plans and ordered the group to disband.
“The river is too dangerous to play in,” he told them.
Stephen obeyed his father that day. But the following day, while his father was supervising some work on the far side of the plantation, he assembled his cast again and lead them to a creek. “Papa didn’t say anything about playing in the creek,” he assured them as he directed the mock battle between the boatload of Indian warriors and the heroes in the canoe.
There were some casualties in the make-believe war, nothing serious, but enough bruises, scrapes, sore heads, and wet and torn clothes to prompt parents to ask questions.
James Cleveland was furious when news of Stephen’s escapade reached him. But he forgave him, as he always did, and, later, he even laughed about the episode.
Joining the California gold rush was adventure tailor-made for Stephen.
Weeks and weeks passed with no word from Stephen, but nobody worried about him. He could take care of himself. Always had.
When Stephen got home from California, he looked taller and more muscular than when he had left, and he had a new air of confidence, the look of a man who had run into rough times and had dealt with them courageously. He wasn’t cocky, just self-assured.
He didn’t bring back saddlebags full of gold nuggets, but he did bring back a score of stories about the places he had been and the people he had met and the experiences he had had.
Stephen also brought back plans for a house.
“I saw a house I liked out there, and I had an architect draw me some plans for one like it,” Stephen said. “It’s a different kind of house, a good house, and I want one like it. You’ll see what it’s like when I get it built.” He made it plain that he did not want to show his plans or to talk further about his house. When friends asked questions, he replied, “Just wait until I get it built.”
It was a rather long wait.
Stephen Cleveland did not build his house until 1860. There were a good many other things he had to do first.
He had entered the practice of law, opening his office in Suggsville, and he had also become involved in politics. He campaigned first for some of his friends when they ran for office, and later he himself ran for the Alabama Senate and was elected to represent the Second Senatorial District (Clarke, Monroe, and Baldwin Counties). He resigned from the senate in 1861 to enter military service.
There were family obligations, too. Stephen Cleveland married Eliza Creagh, daughter of his neighbor Gerard Wathall Creagh. On August 6, 1856, their first child, a son named Walter, was born.
That son, friends said, completely changed Stephen’s life.
“Stephen acts as if he’s the only papa in the world!” his friends laughed. “To hear him talk, you’d think nobody else ever had a son. Nothing else is as important to him as that baby is.”
Stephen was, indeed a doting father. As soon as Walter could sit up, he took the baby on his horse with him and rode at a canter down the main street of Suggsville. He stopped frequently to introduce his son to friends along the way, to show the baby off. When they returned home, he handed the baby to a nurse and said to Eliza:
“You would have been proud of him—he never cried once! Rode as if he had been born in the saddle. He’ll have to have his own pony before long.”
Eliza smiled at her husband as she took the baby from the nurse’s arms. “Don’t hurry with that pony, please. He is a baby yet!”
Walter
