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LIFE OF MISS FOLSOM.

A True Sketch of the Heroine of the
Coming Blissful Event.

Until Sunday last the Buffalo Courier has
contained no mention of President Cleve-
land's engagement to Miss Folsom. That
paper is supposed to speak for the President
officially. Hence the following editorial arti-
cle published Sunday was read in Buffalo
with great interest:

MISS FOLSOM.

Now that official announcement has been
given of the coming marriage of President
Cleveland and Miss Folsom on June 2, the
Courier, which has refrained from adding to
the unlimited and cruel preliminary gossip
on the subject, finds it proper to say a few
words concerning the approaching event and
its heroine. The leading facts in the early
life of the President's bride-elect have been
so often repeated since the night of late, that it
would be superfluous again to go into details
concerning them had not innumerable errors
crept into these unauthorized sketches.

Miss Folsom, whose Christian name, by the
way, is not Frances, but Frank, was born in
the year 1864, and will be 22 years old on the
21st of July. She was born in the house No.
168 Edward street, opposite the school-yard
of the orphan asylum. As a child she at-
tended Mme. Brecker's French kindergarten.
Later the family moved from Edward street
to the house now occupied by Mr. George J.
Letchworth, in Franklin street. At the time
of Mr. Folsom's death, in 1875, they were liv-
ing at the Tifft House. It will be remembered
that Mrs. and Miss Folsom were in Medina
when this sad accident happened. After the
funeral they went to Medina, where Mrs.
Harmon, Mrs. Folsom's widowed mother,
resided. The Harmon family had good social
position and owned considerable valuable
real estate, including the Tifft House property. While
in Medina, Miss Folsom was a pupil at the
high school.

On returning to Buffalo in a few years, Frank
entered the Central School, and she and her
mother boarded with Mrs. Jonathan Mayhew.
One of the Central School teachers has said of
her that Frank learned very readily and
seemed to remember equally well, and that
she "always put a little of herself into her
recitations." While enrolled as a pupil at
the Central her name used often to get
transferred to the boys' lists, and so, in order
that it should sound less masculine, she tem-
porarily inserted the initial letter C. after
Frank, calling herself Frank Clara. This ex-
plains why her name now often erroneously
appears with the initial C. She was a regular
attendant of the Central Presbyterian
Church, of which she is a member. During
part of the time she was pursuing her studies
at the Central School she and her mother
boarded at Mrs. Carpenter's, in the Boston
Block. Afterward her mother occupied Mrs.
R.D. Boyd's house, in Franklin street, and
from there Miss Folsom went to Wells Col-
lege. Her Central School certificates ad-
mitted her to the sophomore class at Wells
College, which she entered without prelimi-
nary examination in the middle of the school
year.

Miss Folsom was a great favorite at Wells
College, and her power of winning the love
and unswerving allegiance of many friends is
a direct inheritance from her father, for a
more genial, generous-hearted, and compan-
ionable man than the late Oscar Folsom never
lived. Her tall, commanding figure, frank-
ness and sincerity made her the queen of the
school. She was graduated from Wells Col-
lege in June, 1885, her graduating essay taking
the form of a story. The hampers of flowers
sent to her nearly every week beginning
about the second year of her college life, from
the executive mansion at Albany, and the
particularly abundant supply that came from
the White House conservatories when she
was graduated, was but one of many little
attentions paid her, the knowledge of which
her collegiates spread abroad on scatter-
ing to their distant homes for the summer
vacations, thus exciting public gossip con-
cerning Miss Folsom's relations to the Presi-
dent.

Miss Folsom has always been in the habit
of spending her summers in Folsomdale,
Wyoming county, two miles out of Cowles-
ville, at the residence of her late grandfather,
Col. John B. Folsom. It is the typical home-
stead, a rambling farm house, set down amid
the lovely scenery of the valley. Sundry
newspaper reports have made Mr. Cleveland
the benefactor of Miss Folsom in a money
sense. Such statements are absolutely
untrue. Her mother’s income has always
been ample for their support, and any extra
funds needed were always to be had from the
grandfather, or "Papa John," as Miss Folsom
called him, and whose recent death will make
her the heiress of a goodly property.

Miss Folsom's character is that of an
unspoiled, ingenuous girl, full of self-posses-
sion, and with too much common-sense to be
overcome by the sudden elevation. Her
chief characteristic is intense loyalty to her
mother, who is as dear as life is known. Between
them exists that perfect confidence and sym-
pathy too seldom seen between parent and
child. Miss Folsom’s life has had its deeper
side. She is old for her years, and too
observing and tactful to make any mistakes,
which, even should they occur, would be
forgiven in one so young and inexperienced,
obliged suddenly to regulate her life by the
complicated etiquette of society at the cap-
ital. One of her accomplishments is a rare
gift for letter-writing. In dress her taste is
very simple. Her common-sense is shown in
naming an early date for the wedding. A
postponement would have brought even
more annoyance in the way of press gossip,
and from the moment of landing to the day
of the wedding every movement of the Pres-
ident and bride elect would have been sub-
ject to the espionage of prying newspaper
correspondents.

Miss Folsom, outside of a very limited
circle of intimate friends, is little acquainted
in Buffalo, and has never mingled in society.
She has never spent but a day or two at a time in
Buffalo. Her only regret at this moment must
be that her father is not living to be present
at the marriage of his only child to the friend
who stuck closer to him than a brother. It is
an interesting coincidence that the Rev. Dr.
Sunderland, who is to perform the marriage
ceremony, frequently occupied, while settled
in Batavia, the pulpit of the Central Presby-
terian Church of Buffalo, the church of which
Miss Folsom is a member. Dr. Sunderland,
having been an attached friend of the late
Dr. Lord, its pastor.

The published prints and photographs of
Miss Folsom do not greatly resemble her.
One of the best likenesses of her, as the
Courier stated last Sunday, is by an amateur
photographer. Her hair is soft and brown, of
a shade between light and dark. She wears
it combed back from her forehead, and loose,
wavy tendrils escape here and there. She
has a delicate nose and rather large nose-
meet. The chief and striking beauty of her
face is her mouth and chin. Mr. Aml
Farnham, the artist, once said that Miss
Folsom had the most beautiful mouth he had
ever seen.

MEETING HIS BRIDE.
President Cleveland met his betrothed Sun-
day night for the first time since last Septem-
ber, when the President and his prospective
bride parted at the White House. Mr. Cleve-
land and his party reached Jersey City at
10.38 Sunday night from Washington. They
were met by Secretary Whitney and Mr.
Benj. Folsom. When the boat left the New
York side of the Hudson the President and
Mr. Folsom were driven in a carriage to the
Gilsey House, where Mrs. Folsom and Miss
Folsom were waiting patiently for him. The
man who sat on the cab box seemed to think
that he could not get the President to his lady
love any too quickly, for he whipped the
horses into a rattling pace all the way uptown.
The cab reached the side entrance at ten
[President Cleveland had been?]
This colt is 14 [hands, bay?], with [hind?]
ankles white and white star in forehead.
This is a change seldom offered to buy so
well-bred a Colt. Any one in want of such a colt
would do well to call or write to owner, where
full particulars will be given.
ED. B. SCHMIDT,
m31-3t 94 West Fayette street.