Sunday's Obituary: Captain John Byrd Conner

Milford Mail (Indiana) - April 18, 1912

Evansville Courier and Press (Indiana)
August 5, 1898

Former Statistician of State Dead.  Capt. John B. Conner, former statistician of the state of Indiana, died at his home in Indianapolis.  He was within a few days of being eighty-one years old.  He had been identified with the Indiana farmer as editor and publisher for over thirty-seven years.  For nearly three years he had been in failing health, though continuing to attend to his business the most of the time.  He was troubled with gall stones, and later with an enlargement of the liver, which was followed by a sharp attack of heart disease, that was the immediate cause of his death.  His last illness was of two weeks' duration.

John Byrd Conner was born April 28, 1831, on the farm of his father, Willoughby Conner, a native of Prince William county, Virginia, who had entered and bought government land in that county in 1820.  The grandfather of John B. Conner was an Englishman, who emigrated to this country when fifteen years old and became a soldier under Washington in the Revolutionary War.

John B. Conner received his early education in a log schoolhouse two miles from his father's farm.  He afterward attended the Vernon seminary, and was a resident of Madison in 1847 when the old Madison & Indianapolis railroad was completed to Indianapolis.

Milford Mail (Indiana)
April 18, 1912

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Evansville Courier and Press (Indiana) - August 5, 1898 - John B. Conner, nominee for state statistician, the office which he now holds, entered the army of the Union as first lieutenant of Company A, twelfth Indiana infantry, and was afterward promoted to captain.  He served in the state legislature in 1897.  He is the author of the bill which provided for the establishment of the Indiana bureau of statistics.  He was chosen executive of this branch by Governor Porter and held the office two years, till it became an elective one.  In 1897 a vacancy occurred and he was appointed by Governor Mount to fill the place.  He has been connected with the Indiana Farmer for years.