Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022

Louisa Cleaver was born on October 31, 1835, in Oley, Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Oley was named by a tribe of Delaware, Lenni-Lenape. In Lenape olink means “kettle,” which is roughly the shape of the valley. It was an important meeting place for Native Americans. In fact, the Sacred Oak, located a mile from Main Street, was over 500 years old, and was the place where the Lenape made treaties and settled differences.

The first European settler-colonists arrived in the Oley Valley in the early 1700s. When they arrived, they found prosperous Lenape villages and fields of corn. The settler-colonists were primarily German, along with French Huguenots and Swiss seeking religious freedom, according to Wikipedia.

Louisa’s parents were Jonathan R. Cleaver (1802-1877) and Sarah Gabey (1812-1890). In the Oley village area were Samuel Weiser (1783-1854) and Mary Polly Schroeder (1793-1879) and their family, including Joel Schroeder Weiser, who was born on August 13, 1934.

It was clear that at some point, Louisa met Joel. When Joel headed to Shakapee City, Minnesota Territory with his older brother, William, he worked as a mason and plasterer, but never forgot about Louisa Cleaver. In fact, in early May of 1854, Joel returned to Oley and married Louisa. After the wedding, Joel and Louisa honeymooned in Niagara Falls.

Joel and Louisa decided that Joel’s parents would move to Shakapee City. Joel’s father, Samuel, had health problems and he and Louisa knew that it would be better to move with them. Joel and Louisa, along with Samuel and Mary Polly, traveled by riverboat up the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. On May 17, 1854, aboard the riverboat, Samuel died. Mary Polly convinced the riverboat captain to take her husband to St. Paul, where he was buried before continuing to Shakapee City.

Joel and Louisa and Mary Polly then lived in Shakopee, along with William and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Allen Weiser, and Dr. Josiah and Eliza “Ella” Victoria Hunt Weiser. During the first few years in Shakopee, the three Weiser brothers and their families were doing very well and made many friendships with some other settler-colonists and some Dakota Indians.

At the start of the Civil War in 1862, William enlisted with the Union Army. On October 17, 1862, Joel’s brother, Dr. Josiah Weiser, was inducted into a local Minnesota army, commanded by General Henry Hastings Sibley, to pursue the Dakota Indians. Finally, on September 31, 1864, Joel enlisted with the Ninth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry and was at once ordered to Memphis to engage in fighting the Confederate forces.

Louisa had four children in Shakopee, although Mary Rebecca Weiser (1856-1864) and James Lawrence Weiser (1857-1864) both died in June of 1864. Mary died on June 8, and four days later, James died of diphtheria. The diphtheria epidemic spiked in Shakopee, hitting mostly children, and the scourge devastated entire families.

When Joel was mustered in 1864, Louisa had three little girls at home. It must have been hard, but it helped that others in the area had similar experiences. When Joel was mustered out of the army on August 24, 1865, and discharged in October, Joel and Louisa had three more children in Shakopee, according to Find a Grave.

Joel returned to his work as a mason in Shakopee until 1870, when he was offered a contract to do construction work in St. Paul.

With the completion of his contract in 1874, he relocated 12 miles east of St. Paul to work on a farm.

Louisa had 12 children, though only six lived until adulthood.

After working as a mason and farmer in eastern Minnesota for over twenty years, Joel and Louisa decided the family would pack up their belongings and travel by train to Worthington, a railroad stop located sixty miles west of Fargo, in northern Dakota Territory. Joel and Louisa filed a homestead and tree claim of 320 acres, four miles northeast of the railroad stop, and built a log cabin in Worthington, which was the second house built there. Joel later changed the name of Worthington to Valley City, according to a column written by Curt Eriksmoen.

Shortly after the family arrived, immigration to Worthington began to pick up, and by 1878, there were about thirty people living there. Weiser built a house and a general store in Worthington, and it has been written that although the store was small, it “carried the largest and most complete stock to be found in [Dakota] Territory at that time.” Along with Weiser’s store and house, the town consisted of 11 other houses and a saloon, according to a column of “Did You Know That” by Curt Eriksmoe on June 13, 2020.

After 33 years in Valley City, North Dakota, Louisa Cleaver Weiser died, and she was buried in Valley City on August 8, 1909. Joel, whose eyesight was poor, lived with his various children, and died in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota on January 17, 1925.

Bibliography

BluMoKitty. “Joel Schroeder Weiser.” Find a Grave, 3 Jun 2013. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/111756244/joel-schroeder-weiser.

Eriksmoen, Curt. “Founder of Valley City waged sustained battle to keep his community relevant.” Did You Know That, 13 June 2020.

“Oley Valley.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oley_Valley