On August 12, 1830, a gentleman disembarked from the ship Symmetry at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He sailed from Liverpool and was thirty years of age. His name was listed as Amos (sic) Cleaver. He was a cabin passenger which would indicate that he possessed some means.

His odyssey in America began with Lexington, Kentucky. On Sunday the 28th of November, 1830, he was ordained as a deacon in the Virginia Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Richard Channing Moore. Cleaver then moved to Lexington, Kentucky. The next year, 1831, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Benjamin Bosworth Smith assigned him to the town of Versailles which was about thirteen miles west of Lexington. Although the church was not begun in Versailles until 1847, Cleaver is recognized as the first Episcopal clergyman to have officiated in that town. No record has been found to indicate when and where he was ordained as a priest but it must have been soon after he became a deacon. In 1832 he was sent to Paris, Kentucky which is located about eighteen miles northeast of Lexington.