Shelby  County,  Indiana
Biographies

J.  W.  Cleaver

          J. W. Cleaver, a native of Ohio, was born in Butler County September 25, 1824.  His parents,  William and  Margaret (Taylor) Cleaver, moved from Maryland to Ohio in 1804, and located in Butler County.  In 1830, they moved to Shelby County, and purchased a farm where they lived until their deaths, the mother dying in 1833, the father in 1867.  J. W. Cleaver is their sixth child and lived at home until he was nineteen years old, when he went to Indianapolis and learned the brick mason's trade, which he followed for twenty years.  He then came to Spencer, and became proprietor of the old " Pacific House," where he stayed for about seven years.  Tiring of this, he worked at his trade for a short time.  He then kept boarding house for awhile, and in 1874 purchased the " Cleaver House," now the "Lucas House," which he traded in 1876 for property in Indianapolis.  In March of the same year, he rented the "National House," which he ran until August of this year (1883), and is now the worthy host of one of the most popular boarding houses in Spencer.  He was married, in 1851, to  Mary E. Ramsey,  daughter of  Jesse Ramsey,  a prominent citizen of Indianapolis.  They have had five children, three of them still living.  Mr. Cleaver is an active member of the Methodist Church.
Counties of Clay and Owen, Indiana: Historical and biographical, Charles Blanchard, Editor. Chicago, F. A. Battey & Co., Publishers, 1884, pages 829-830.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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