Daniel Cleveland

Daniel Cleveland (March 21, 1838 – January 3, 1929) was an American lawyer, politician, civic leader and botanist.

Originating from a family of lawyers from Poughkeepsie, New York, he practiced law throughout his life. He served as the mayor of San Antonio from 1865 to 1866 before he settled in San Francisco and then San Diego. In San Diego, he built a reputation as a prominent civic figure, helping with the organization and founding of numerous community organizations which included the first public library in the city, the Bank of San Diego, the San Diego Society of Natural History and a chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. Cleveland was an avid naturalist and collected numerous specimens of flora and fauna in the San Diego region, forwarding many them to Dr. Asa Gray of Harvard University, earning his name on numerous species and genera.

Early life Daniel Cleveland was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on March 21, 1838. He came from a family of lawyers, and his lineage consisted of old-stock Americans who had come to the continent before 1640, with his great-grandfather fighting as a soldier in General Putnam's army during the American Revolution, participating in the Battle of Bunker Hill. His father, Stephen Cleveland, was a prominent lawyer in New York.

At the age of twelve, Daniel Cleveland moved to Biloxi, Mississippi, to attend school. He briefly moved to New Orleans for two years when he was seventeen, and then returned to Poughkeepsie to study law, being admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of New York in 1859. In May 1859, Cleveland moved to San Antonio, Texas, to join his brother William H. Cleveland. With the eruption of the Civil War, the brothers swore allegiance to the Union, but were unable to perform military service.

Career in San Antonio After moving to San Antonio, Cleveland became a leading force in the community, despite the dangers of being a vocal Republican during that period. On petition from local businessmen, the Reconstruction-era governor of Texas, Andrew Jackson Hamilton, commissioned him as mayor of the city in 1865, which was then struggling with martial law, a demoralized population and a bankrupt treasury. He served as mayor from October 9, 1865 to August 23, 1866. In his brief ten months as mayor, he freed the city from debt and started numerous municipal improvements. He was the first officer in the state to admit the testimony of a black man against a white one. Cleveland served as the attorney for Texas and Pacific Railroad when it was involved in litigation with the City of San Diego from 1876 to 1880. In 1895, he helped form the Coronado Beach Summer School, which was one of the first summer schools established in Southern California, and served eight years on the city's Board of Education. On October 1, 1874, the two met with seven other men in Cleveland's office to form the San Diego Society of Natural History, which was officially filed and publicly announced on October 17. It initially was a club for nature hobbyists, with the society holding weekly meetings, they soon established a scientific library, and began to handle donations of plant, animal, and fossil collections. Cleveland's involvement in the museum spanned some 40 years, and he served as the president for two terms.

Cleveland began a scientific correspondence with botanist Asa Gray in 1871. Cleveland made collections of the local flora, becoming the first to produce a systematic study of the plants of the San Diego area after the 1850 boundary survey. He submitted many of his specimens to Gray, who helped classify many new species unknown to science. He also corresponded with numerous other scientists, European and American, submitting many new taxa of plants and animals, including a genus of fish named in his honor. His particular interest was in ferns, and his plant collection that he gifted formed the initial bulk of the San Diego Society of Natural History's herbarium. The Society would later become more well-known as the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Later life Preoccupied with community and scientific service, Cleveland had found little time for marriage, until he finally married the widow Marion South Webb on July 22, 1921. Cleveland's long history in San Diego allowed him to write a series of articles in the San Diego Union about his early life in the area. He died at home on January 3, 1929, short of his 91st birthday.

Legacy Numerous taxa of plants and animals were named in honor of Cleveland. They include:

Flora

Salvia clevelandii Penstemon clevelandii Diplacus clevelandii Horkelia clevelandii Myropteris clevelandii Primula clevelandii Bloomeria clevelandii Nicotiana clevelandii

Fauna

Clevelandia ios