 Born and raised in Ohio, McCloud moved to Iowa when he was a young man, where at the young age of 20, he was elected to the position of County Surveyor of newly organized Linn County, Iowa.He married Mary Campbell in Iowa in 1848, came to California during the California Gold Rush as a Forty-Niner in the early 1850s, but had limited success in the gold fields.His wife took the Oregon Trail and joined him in Northern California in 1853.