Soon after Conrad's birth, his father was discharged from the Blue Dragoons and moved back to the family ancestral home of Großaspach.

Their lands had been ravaged by repeated French invasions, there was pestilence, and the people were weakened by an unusually cold and long winter.

"[3] Conrad Weiser and his family were among thousands of refugees who left German lands that year, many of them from the Palatine area.

The following year in 1710, the Crown (under Queen Anne) arranged for transport in ten ships of the nearly 3,000 Germans to the New York colony.

The plan was that they would work off their passage in a form of indenture in camps devoted to producing ships' stores, such as tar and other materials.

When Conrad was 16, his father agreed to a chief's proposal for the youth to live with the Mohawk in the upper Schoharie Valley.

During his stay in the winter and spring of 1712–1713, Weiser learned much about the Mohawk language and the customs of the people, who were the easternmost tribe of the Iroquois League.

In 1729 the couple followed the Susquehanna River south out of New York and settled their young family on a farm in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania near present-day Reading.

During the treaty in Philadelphia of 1736, Shikellamy, Weiser, and the Pennsylvanians negotiated a deed whereby the Iroquois sold the land drained by the Delaware River and south of the Blue Mountain.

Since the Iroquois had not until then laid claim to this land, Pennsylvania's agreement to purchase from them represented a significant change in the colony's policy toward the Native Americans.

By this formal purchase, the Pennsylvanians were favoring the Iroquois over the claims of the Lenape (whom the English called the Delaware after the river they named after a lord) for the same land.

During the winter of 1737, beginning February 27, Weiser was commissioned by Virginia Governor William Gooch to attempt to broker a peace between southern tribes and the Iroquois.

Weiser and his German companion, Stoffel Stump, had to survive high snow, freezing temperatures, and starvation rations to make the six-week journey in winter to what was considered the Iroquois capital at Onondaga, in upstate New York near present-day Syracuse.

In 1742, Weiser interpreted at a treaty meeting between the Iroquois and English colonials at Philadelphia, when they were paid for the land purchased in 1736.

[7]: 78–85 In 1744, Weiser acted as the interpreter for the Treaty of Lancaster, which was agreed to by representatives of the Iroquois and the colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

During the final day of the treaty council, on July 4, Canasatego, an Onondaga chief, spoke about the Iroquois concepts of political unity: Our wise forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five Nations.

Therefore whatever befalls you, never fall out with one another.Benjamin Franklin printed this speech, which some historians believe influenced development of American concepts of political unity.

Threatened by this development and the continued activity of British traders in the Ohio Valley, the French redoubled their diplomatic efforts.

The English government had called the meeting, hoping to win assurances of Iroquois support in the looming war with the French.

Some lower-level chiefs deeded to the colony most of the land remaining in present-day Pennsylvania, including the southwestern part that Virginia was also still claiming.

This collapse of Native American support was a factor in the French decision to demolish Fort Duquesne and withdraw from the Forks of the Ohio.

Because of his early experiences with the Iroquois, Weiser was inclined to be sympathetic to their interpretation of events, as opposed to the Lenape or the Shawnee.

He drew the plan for the town of Reading in 1748, was a key figure in the creation of Berks County in 1752, and was appointed to serve as its chief judge until 1760.

Following its victory in the Seven Years War, Britain later gained all French territory east of the Mississippi River at the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

It has been preserved to serve as an interpretive center for 18th-century farming, political and colonial history, and hosts regular re-enactments, especially of events during the French and Indian War.