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Facts That Contradict the Perception of Famous Historic Figures and Events

Khalid Elhassan March 3, 2021 34 min

Mao Zedong proclaiming the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. China Org

Grover Cleveland and Maria Halpin. Rise Collaborative

9. A Presidential Scandal That Puts Other Scandals to Shame

It began on the evening of December 15^th, 1873, with a chance street encounter in Buffalo between Maria Halpin and Grover Cleveland. At the time, he was a prominent lawyer and former Sheriff of Erie County, which included Buffalo. Cleveland, a stocky six-footer who had been courting Halpin for months, invited her to dinner at a restaurant, and she accepted. After a pleasant meal, he escorted her back to her boarding house. There, however, the pleasantness stopped, things took a horrible turn, and Halpin’s perception of Cleveland was forever altered.

According to Halpin in an affidavit, the future president assaulted her “by use of force and violence and without my consent“. When she threatened to report the assault, the former Sheriff threatened her into silence. As her affidavit continued, Cleveland: “told me he was determined to ruin me if it cost him $10,000, if he was hanged by the neck for it. I then and there told him that I never wanted to see him again, and commanded him to leave my room, which he did“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.