A History of the Cleavers

George Cleaver, according to family stories, was born in England and migrated to America. He married Lucretia Birdsall, who was born January 15, 1757 in Beekman Precinct, Dutchess County, New York. She is descended from George Soule (born before 1600 in Eckington, Worcester, England. He came to America on the Mayflower.). Family stories indicate that George Cleaver was killed by a Tory during the Revolutionary War. The Tory’s name was Huddleston, who was hanged for the offense. The stories indicate that Lucretia bound her four sons out to trades. David was bound to the saddling trade, but did not like it, so he ran away and bound himself to the coach-making trade. Her other sons included George Cleaver, Jr., Walter Cleaver, and possibly John Cleaver, born May 1, 1774 in Dutchess County, New York.

Viw the descendants of George Soule.

View the descendants of Thomas Dakin.

View the descendants of Henry Birdsall.

David married Sarah Dakin, who was born about the same time as her husband. It is likely that she was also born in Dutchess County. Sarah is descended from Thomas Dakin, who was born in England about May 1624 and arrived in Massachusetts in the late 1600s. David and Sarah had ten children. In 1798, their son Wooster Dakin Cleaver was born in Sherman, Fairfeild County, Connecticut. In 1800, another son, James Cleaver, was born in Connecticut.

David “Clever” is listed in the 1810 Federal Census as residing in Brookfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut. Both Brookfield and Sherman are Connecticut towns very close to the New York town of Pawling, where Sarah was likely born. As the family is next registered in the 1820 census in Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio, it is clear that the family moved there after 1810. Many other residents of Dutchess County, New York, followed Sarah’s uncle, Preserved Fish Dakin, who founded the Dakin Colony in Chester Township, near Wilmington, Ohio in 1806. This was a Quaker colony.

From census records in 1830 and 1840, David and Sarah were living in Union Township in Clinton County. They are not found in the census records after 1840. It would seem that David died between 1840 and 1850. Sarah died in 1850, according to Clinton County obituaries. Their granddaughter, Phebe Cleaver, mentions in her journal that her Cleaver grandparents were buried in Little Centre, about five miles outside Wilmington, Ohio. It is likely that the cemetery is the one where the Center Monthly Meeting house was located.

Their son, Wooster Dakin Cleaver took up his father’s trade as a coach-maker. He married Margaret Davis on March 1, 1827 in Clinton County. Margaret is the daughter of Amos and Mary (John) Davis who came to Ohio from Pennsylvania. Both the Davis and the John families came to America from Wales in the 1700s.

1800 Census: New Fairfield, Fairfield, CT
Series: M32 Roll: 1 Page: 92

1810 Census: Sherman, Fairfield, CT
Series: M252 Roll: 1 Page: 241

1820 Census: Chester, Clinton, OH
Series: M33 Roll: 90 Page: 37

1830 Census: Union, Clinton, OH
Series: M19 Roll: 129 Page: 193

1840 Census: Union, Clinton, OH
Series: M704 Roll: 385 Page: 298

David and Sarah moved their family to Clinton County, Ohio after their daughter Caroline was born in NY/CT (about 1815) and their first census listing in Ohio in 1820.

View the ancestral pedigree of Sarah Dakin.

Phebe Cleaver was born July 28, 1828 in Ohio. She married Jonathan Baxter Harrison before 1861. The 1880 census reports the family living in Franklin, Merrimack County, New Hampshire. Her occupation is listed as keeping house. Jonathan is listed as a clergyman. Their three sons were Bayard, Charles E., and Paul C.

Portions of a journal written by Phebe are posted here.

Amos D. Cleaver was born April 22, 1829 in Ohio. He married Carolyn Rhorer on February 2, 1854 in Shelby County, Indiana. Sometime between 1857 and 1862, his family moved to Illinois. They resided at Martinsville, Clark County, Illinois, with their three children, Theodore P., Dewitt C., and Roena. Amos enlisted as a sergeant in the 123rd Infantry Regiment of Illinois on Aug. 14, 1862 in Company G. His company was mustered on September 6, 1862. He died at Woodsonville, Kentucky Nov. 19, 1862. He was a sergeant at the time of his death. Company G was commanded by Captain Reson L. Lovelace.

David Cleaver was born July 30, 1830 in Newton, Shelby County, Indiana. He married Mary Elizabeth McFadden. Both died in Ottawa County, Kansas. David was a wagon maker, like his father. Their children were: Frank, Jennie M., John Wesley, James W., Carrie Z., Nellie B., Charles, Charlotta Estelle (Lottie), and Chester.

Mary Cleaver was born in Indiana on November 9, 1831. She married John Dickey Henry on June 23, 1850 in Shelby County, Indiana. She died in Shelby County, Indiana. Their children were Elmira, Samuel, Lyman, and Benny.

Twin sons, Walter and Wooster, were born in August 1834 and apparently died in infancy.

Lauretta Viola was born in Franklin County, Indiana, and married George William Foster on August 4, 1855. She died in Clarksburg, Indiana on May 28, 1874. Their children were Arthur Dora and Mary Arminta.

Caroline Zethena was born April 9, 1841 in Indiana, and married William W. Andrew. She died in Topeka, Kansas in 1912.

Wooster D. Cleaver was born June 11, 1843 in Indiana. His wife’s name was Eliza. The 1880 census reports the family living in Perry, Marion County, Indiana. His occupation is listed as taxpayer assessor and Eliza’s as toll gate keeper. They had four sons: Lutman, George, Richard, and Wooster D. Cleaver. Their father died in Glasgow, Kansas.

Kesiah Cleaver was born March 25, 1846. No other information on her has yet been found.

1840 Census: Franklin Co., Indiana
Series: M704 Roll: 80 Page: 264
(1 male under age 5, 2 males age 10-15, 1 male age 40-50, 1 female under age
5, 1 female age 5-10, 1 female age 10-15, 1 female age 30-40)

1850 CENSUS: Moral, Shelby, Indiana
Series: M432 Roll: 172 Page: 286

1860 CENSUS: Moral, Shelby, Indiana
Series: M653 Roll: 296 Page: 869

View the ancestral pedigree of Margaret Davis.

George Isaac Cleaver was born May 14, 1837 in Franklin County, Indiana. George learned his father’s trade, wagon maker, and married Elizabeth Rhorer, who was born in Indiana in 1838. They married sometime before 1860. They had two sons, Walter Lincoln Cleaver, who was born May 9, 1860 in Indiana, and Wallace D. Cleaver, who was born in 1862 in Shelby County, Indiana.

When George was 25, he joined Company L of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry on October 23, 1862, the date the company was organized. Captain Oliver M. Powers (commissioned Sept. 29, 1862) commanded this company. George entered with the rank of corporal.

The whereabouts of Companies L and M are not recorded before April 1863 when they were stationed at Indianapolis. They were posted here through July 1863.

Companies L and M, while in Indiana, served as provost marshals, enforcing the draft, and as an extension of the civil government in regions of the state where citizens were less than enthusiastic about the war. The two companies would also participate in the pursuit of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan in July of 1863 (Morgan's Raid was a highly publicized incursion by Confederate Cavalry into the Northern states of Indiana and Ohio. The raid took place from June 11–July 26, 1863.)

Companies L and M join the rest of the West Wing at Maryville, East Tennessee in January 1864 and were at the rear of Knoxville, Tennessee in February 1864.

The West Wing was at Russellville, Tennessee, March 1864. On March 9 and 10 the companies marched from Knoxville to Strawberry Plains and on March 10 from Strawberry Plains to Mossy Creek Station.

George was killed in a duel with a rebel soldier of Gen. Joe Wheeler's Cavalry on March 11, 1864, and is buried in a soldier's grave at Knoxville, Tennessee. After his death, his widow Elizabeth moved with her two sons and her father, Simeon Rhorer, to Clark County, Illinois.

1860 Census: Sugar Creek Township, Shelby County, Indiana
Series: M653 Roll: 296 Page: 912
Listed under Isaac Cleaver [George Isaac Cleaver]

1870 Census: Auburn Township, Clark County, Illinois
Series: M593 Roll: 195 Page: 287

1880 Census: Auburn Township, Clark County, Illinoi
Series: T9 Roll: 181 Page: 18

1900 Census: Auburn Township, Clark County, Illinois
Series: T623 Roll: 242 Page: 15

1910 Census: Grandview Township, Edgar County, Illinois
Series: T624 Roll: 286 Page: 79

View the ancestral pedigree of Mariah Armilda Wallace.

Herbert was born and raised in Paris, Illinois. His mother died when he was 13 years old. He left school to keep house for the family as he was the youngest of all the siblings. He later worked in the "broom fields" around Casey, Illinois.

He and a good friend traveled to Kalamazoo, Michigan, looking for work. He was employed in a foundry there, where he met Marie Hanna. They were married in Kalamazoo in March, 1927.

During the Great Depression, he worked with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as many Americans did during this time. He was a stone mason and helped build many of the stone walls in the Kalamazoo area.

He also worked for the Parchment Paper Company, and the Kalamazoo Concrete Pipe Company as well as the Clarage Fan Company. In his later years, he worked for the Kalamazoo Gazette.

He died in March 1969 as a result of cancer. At this time, he and Marie were living at Barton Lake, outside Vicksburg, Michigan.

1920 Census: Grandview Township, Edgar County, Illinois
Series: T624 Roll: 286 Page: 79

Herbert "Bud" Cleaver quit school during the tenth grade because of severe sinus problems which seemed to keep him behind in school work.

At the age of ten, he worked at a neighbor's farm, earning $4 a day. After dropping out of high school, he worked for the Kalamazoo Concrete Pipe Company until he enlisted in the United States Navy in June 1945, at age 17.

He received his boot training at Samson, New York, where German Prisoners of War were kept. These prisoners were captured in one-man subs off the east coast of the United States.

From Samson, he was transferred to the Flushing Receiving Barracks in Brooklyn, New York, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He had the rank of Seaman First Class and was in charge of 18 sailors (seamen second class).

From there he was assigned to the U.S.S. North Carolina as part of the port watch deck crew. He then was assigned to the #2 Turret (big guns) and was in charge of the center gun magazines.

The North Carolina was scheduled to be scrapped, but citizens of North Carolina successfully raised funds to purchase the battleship and created a memorial in Wilmington, North Carolina, where it can be visited today.

He was discharged from the Navy in February 1949 and returned to Kalamazoo. He had met and dated Dorothy Farrow when they were both 16 years old. Shortly after arriving home from the Navy, they were married.

He had secured a job as a nurse in the Kalamazoo State Hospital. After their marriage, he began working for the Southerland Paper Company and worked there until 1955.

In 1954, his grandmother, Elsie Bresman (nee Hanna) died. Her husband, John Bresman asked Herb and Dorothy and their baby, David, to live with him in Parchment, a suburb of Kalamazoo.

In July 1955, the family moved to Tucson, Arizona, where Dorothy's mother then lived. Herb worked in the Silver Saddle Tavern, owned by his in-laws, Rose and Dave Coleman, until he was hired at the Silver Bell mine by the American Smelting & Refining Company (now ASARCO).

In 1956, their daughter Diane was born, and in 1957, the family moved to the Silver Bell townsite. Silver Bell is about 40 miles northwest of Tucson.

Herb started out on the labor crew, and was reassigned to better positions in this order: "slops assays" in the Samples Lab, the Filter Plant, water truck driver, Dump Truck driver, oiler for the big shovels, shovel operator, and finally front end loader.

He was forced to retire when the mine shut down because of low copper prices throughout the industry.

The town of Silver Bell thus became a "ghost town." Herb and Dorothy moved to Tucson where he continued working. He worked during his retirement years at various places, including Casas Adobes Baptist Church and Watson Chevrolet, where in 2007, he was still working.

View the ancestral pedigree of Dorothy Colleen Farrow.

View the ancestral pedigree of Suzette Marie Roberts.

View the ancestral pedigree of Benjamin David Cleaver.

View the ancestral pedigree of Richard Lawrence Stephens.

View the ancestral pedigree of Josef David Stephens.


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