Most American presidents arrived at the White House after serving in Congress, commanding armies, governing states, or spending several decades shaking hands with people they privately hoped never to see again.

Grover Cleveland took a somewhat less conventional route.

Before becoming the 22nd president of the United States—and later returning as the 24th—Cleveland served as sheriff of Erie County, New York. During that brief chapter of his career, he personally pulled the lever that hanged two convicted murderers.

This makes Cleveland the only U.S. president known to have personally carried out a judicial execution as a civil official. Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel, and several presidents commanded troops in battle, but Cleveland ended two lives while acting under a court order—and presumably completed paperwork afterward. Government service has always involved a surprising variety of duties.

Before President Cleveland, There Was “Big Steve”

Grover Cleveland was born Stephen Grover Cleveland in Caldwell, New Jersey, on March 18, 1837. He eventually stopped using his first name professionally, but his friends in Buffalo did not let it go quietly. Because Cleveland weighed more than 250 pounds, they called him “Big Steve.”

The nickname was direct, uncomplicated, and based entirely on observable facts. In other words, it belonged to an age before marketing consultants charged six figures to develop a personal brand.

Cleveland moved to Buffalo in 1855 and found work as a clerk in a law office. He never attended college or law school, but he studied under practicing attorneys, passed the bar, and developed a reputation as a hardworking and capable lawyer. He later served as an assistant district attorney for Erie County.

Cleveland’s life was not defined entirely by politics, vetoes, and unusually grim job assignments. Long before he entered public office, he formed a friendship with Fanny Crosby, the blind poet and hymn writer who would compose such enduring songs as “Blessed Assurance” and “To God Be the Glory.” Their friendship lasted for more than fifty years, and Cleveland continued to speak warmly of her even after reaching the White House. You can read more about the unlikely friendship between Fanny Crosby and Grover Cleveland—a considerably gentler chapter in his biography than the one involving trapdoors and nooses.

In 1870, the Democratic Party nominated Cleveland for sheriff. He won by a narrow margin and took office in January 1871.

His term was not the heroic campaign against corruption sometimes imagined in later retellings. Historians generally describe it as competent but unremarkable. Cleveland was aware of questionable practices within county government but did not spend his term overturning tables, exposing conspiracies, or dramatically pointing at suspects while an orchestra played in the background.

He did, however, face two duties that ensured his time as sheriff would never be entirely forgotten.

Why Was Sheriff Grover Cleveland Responsible for Hangings?

Under New York law at the time, responsibility for carrying out a death sentence rested with the county sheriff. Cleveland did not have to pull the lever personally. He could appoint a deputy to perform the execution and pay that person $10.

That option produced two competing explanations for Cleveland’s decision to do the job himself.

The less flattering explanation, repeated by Cleveland’s political enemies, was that he simply did not want to spend the money. Ten dollars in the 1870s was not insignificant, and Cleveland had a reputation for watching public expenditures closely. “He hanged a man to save ten dollars” was precisely the sort of accusation nineteenth-century politics could put to productive use.

The traditional explanation is that Cleveland believed an elected official should not push the most unpleasant responsibilities of the office onto a subordinate. The voters had elected him sheriff, not someone standing conveniently nearby. If the office carried a moral burden, Cleveland supposedly believed that burden belonged to him.

Which explanation best captures Cleveland’s thinking is impossible to determine with certainty. History occasionally gives us clear facts but neglects to attach a reliable transcript of what everyone was thinking at the time. It is inconsiderate that way.

Patrick Morrissey: The First Man Hanged by Grover Cleveland

Patrick Morrissey was 28 years old and had recently been released from prison when he became involved in a drunken argument with his mother over money. During the dispute, Morrissey stabbed her with a bread knife. She died from the wound, and her son was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

The execution was scheduled for September 6, 1872, in the yard of the Erie County jail in Buffalo.

On the appointed morning, Morrissey was dressed in black and taken to the gallows. Priests accompanied him and offered prayers. A limited number of witnesses were admitted while a larger crowd gathered outside, because nineteenth-century Americans could turn virtually anything into public entertainment provided there was no television competing for their attention.

Cleveland supervised the preparations and then personally operated the mechanism that opened the trapdoor beneath Morrissey.

The execution appears to have proceeded as intended, but Cleveland was deeply affected by it. Accounts of the event say he became ill and stayed away from his office for several days afterward. Whatever his views on capital punishment, he did not treat the killing as a routine administrative task.

He had accepted responsibility for the execution. He also discovered that accepting responsibility did not make it any easier to live with.

John Gaffney: Cleveland’s Second Execution

Less than six months later, Cleveland had to do it again.

John Gaffney had been convicted of murdering Patrick Fahey. The two men became involved in a dispute at a Buffalo saloon on May 7, 1872. Gaffney drew a revolver and shot Fahey in the head.

As the date of his execution approached, Gaffney began behaving violently and erratically. Questions arose about whether he had become insane or was pretending to be insane in hopes of delaying his sentence. Physicians examined him, and a jury convened to consider his condition ultimately found him sane. When Cleveland told Gaffney that the execution would proceed, the condemned man abandoned his claim of insanity and began speaking rationally.

The hanging was scheduled for February 14, 1873.

Yes, Valentine’s Day. Buffalo was not having an especially romantic morning.

Despite the emotional toll of Morrissey’s execution, Cleveland again refused to transfer the duty to someone else. He oversaw the preparations, stood beside the gallows, and released the trap.

Accounts report that the fall broke Gaffney’s neck and that physicians formally pronounced him dead approximately 23 minutes later. Later retellings frequently describe the hanging as botched, although the surviving accounts do not clearly establish that Gaffney remained conscious or suffered throughout that interval. What is certain is that Cleveland remained at the gallows until the physicians completed their grim formalities.

The experience gave “Big Steve” a distinction no reasonable person would have requested and no later president has duplicated.

From Sheriff to President in Just a Few Years

When Cleveland’s term as sheriff ended, he returned to practicing law. For several years, it appeared that his political career had ended before it had accomplished anything especially memorable—aside from the two executions, which were quite memorable enough.

Then Buffalo politics presented him with another opportunity.

By 1881, both major political parties in Buffalo had developed reputations for corruption. Democrats needed a candidate for mayor who could attract reform-minded voters, including Republicans disgusted with their own party’s nominees. Cleveland’s reputation for personal honesty made him an appealing choice.

He won the election and served as mayor during 1882. Cleveland scrutinized contracts, challenged wasteful spending, and repeatedly used his veto against measures he considered improper. His enthusiasm for rejecting legislation earned him another nickname: the “Veto Mayor.”

It was an effective political identity. Cleveland presented himself as the rare public official who could look at a proposal promising money, influence, and grateful supporters and respond with the deeply unnatural word “no.”

His performance attracted statewide attention. In September 1882, Democrats nominated him for governor of New York. He won by a landslide and took office in January 1883.

As governor, Cleveland continued vetoing bills, resisting political patronage, and cultivating a reputation for stubborn honesty. By July 1884, the Democratic Party had nominated him for president.

In less than three years, Cleveland went from being a relatively obscure Buffalo lawyer to a candidate for the White House. Modern politicians spend longer than that deciding whether to form an exploratory committee.

Why Was Grover Cleveland Called the “Buffalo Hangman”?

The presidential campaign of 1884 was unusually bitter, even by the generous standards of American politics.

Cleveland’s supporters presented him as an honest reformer running against Republican nominee James G. Blaine, who had been accused of using political influence for personal benefit. The Democratic slogan “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine” was not subtle, but subtlety has rarely enjoyed a large campaign budget.

Republicans responded by digging through Cleveland’s past. They attacked him for hiring a substitute rather than serving in the Civil War, publicized a serious scandal involving Maria Halpin and her child, and reminded voters that Cleveland had personally executed two men.

Opponents called him the “Hangman of Buffalo” or the “Buffalo Hangman.” The charge was factually based, but it did not produce the desired result. Cleveland narrowly won the election and became the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War.

His past at the gallows may even have reinforced part of his political image. Cleveland’s central argument was that public officials must accept responsibility, obey the law, and perform their duties even when doing so was difficult or unpopular. Whatever one thinks about capital punishment, his conduct as sheriff fit that image with uncomfortable precision.

The 22nd and 24th President

Cleveland served as president from 1885 to 1889. He won the popular vote again in 1888 but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison. Four years later, Cleveland defeated Harrison and returned to the White House.

Cleveland’s return to office created a small but enduring headache for anyone trying to count presidents. Because Benjamin Harrison occupied the White House between Cleveland’s two terms, Cleveland is conventionally numbered as both the 22nd and 24th president. For more than a century, he was the only person counted twice—until Donald Trump returned in 2025 and became both the 45th and 47th president.

Of course, presidential arithmetic becomes even less cooperative once you start asking whether pre-Constitution officeholders, disputed one-day presidents, or individual terms should also be counted. For a fuller explanation of why a seemingly simple question can produce enough answers to fill a ballot, read “Just How Many Presidents Have There Been?”

Cleveland’s two presidencies included battles over tariffs, government spending, civil-service reform, railroad regulation, veterans’ pensions, labor unrest, and the economic depression known as the Panic of 1893. His record remains debated, and some of his policies have aged considerably worse than his mustache.

Yet the trait that carried him from Buffalo to Washington was remarkably consistent. Cleveland believed public office imposed duties that could not be avoided merely because they were unpleasant. Sometimes that conviction looked like courage. Sometimes it looked like inflexibility. Frequently it looked like both before lunch.

The Hangman Who Went to the White House

The hangings of Patrick Morrissey and John Gaffney did not make Grover Cleveland president. His rise came later, built upon his reputation as a lawyer, reform mayor, veto-wielding governor, and public official whose personal honesty appealed to voters weary of corruption.

Still, the executions reveal something important about the man. Cleveland believed that accepting an office meant accepting all of its responsibilities—not merely the pleasant ones that came with a desk, a title, and invitations to banquets.

Cleveland’s years as sheriff did not propel him into the White House, but they revealed the same stubborn sense of duty that later defined his political career. He believed public office meant accepting the responsibilities that came with it, including the ones no sane person would volunteer to put on a résumé. Most presidents entered office with experience signing bills, commanding troops, or making speeches. Most presidents entered office with experience signing bills, commanding troops, or making speeches. Grover Cleveland arrived with the additional qualification of knowing exactly what happened when a public official pulled the lever no one else wanted to touch.

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