Upon the expiration of his term of service as deputy district attorney, in January, 1866, he entered actively into practice, having formed a partnership with the late Isaac K. Vanderpoel, a prominent lawyer and ex-State treasurer.  The burden of the labor fell to the share of the junior partner, and through his close attention to the interests of clients the business of the firm soon became extensive and the income fairly remunerative.  Three years later the partnership was dissolved, through the election of Mr. Vanderpoel as police judge, and soon after the new firm of Cleveland, Laning, & Folsom was formed.  In 1870 Mr. Cleveland was urged by leading Democrats of Erie county to accept the party nomination for sheriff.  The proposition was by no means in accordance with his desires or inclinations.  The office, although a most important one in a large and populous county, and commanding liberal compensation in fees, was a most thankless one in many respects:  its duties, always delicate and exacting, sometimes disagreeable in the extreme, and its responsibilities great.  It was felt, however, that the acceptance of this nomination by one who so thoroughly commanded the confidence of the people, and whose professional training and experience gave him superior qualification for the office, would insure to the county ticket of the party, with due care in the selection of other candidates, the strength necessary to success in the election.  As a loyal member of the party to whose principles he had ever been devotedly attached, and in the support of whose cause he had labored in every consistent capacity since becoming a voter, he finally yielded, accepted the nomination, and, as had been hoped, was duly elected along with the entire ticket.  He administered the office, upon which he entered in January following, upon strict business principles, and to the eminent satisfaction of the courts, the bar, and the public at large, during the full term of three years.  There were no duties, however irksome, from which he shrank; no responsibilities which he failed to meet in a becoming manner; and when, on the first of January, 1874, his term expired and he returned to his legal practice, it was with a larger measure of popular esteem than he had ever before enjoyed.

In resuming professional labor he formed a partnership with his friend and former antagonist, Lyman K. Bass, Mr. Wilson S. Bissel also becoming a member of the firm.  Now thirty-seven years of age, with mental powers thoroughly developed, and a capacity for labor far greater than that with which most men are favored, he was eminently well equipped for substantial achievement in his chosen field of effort; and it is not too much to say that, in the next seven years, during which he gave uninterrupted attention to the work, he accomplished as much in the way of honest professional triumph as any lawyer in Western New York.  He sought no mere personal distinction, but put his heart into