[19] In 1853, when missionary work began to take a toll on the health of Cleveland's father, he took an assignment in Holland Patent, New York (near Utica) and moved his family again.[20] Shortly after, he died from a gastric ulcer. The younger Cleveland was said to have learned about his father's death from a boy selling newspapers.[20]

Education and moving west
An early, undated photograph of Grover Cleveland
Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Liberal Academy.[21] After his father died in 1853, he again left school to help support his family. Later that year, Cleveland's brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City, and William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher. Cleveland returned home to Holland Patent at the end of 1854, where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he would promise to become a minister. Cleveland declined, and in 1855 he decided to move west.[22]
He stopped first in Buffalo, New York, where his uncle-in-law Lewis F. Allen, gave him a clerical job.