My Genealogy Hound

GEN. ALEXANDER H. CONNOR. General Connor’s father, William Connor, was of Irish extraction, was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Michigan and Indiana. In western Pennsylvania, while a lad, he was captured by the Indians and taken to Fort Detroit, Mich., where he was released and conducted by white settlers to the Northwest Territory, now southeast Indiana, where he finally located near the present town of Brookville, and where he was for many years a surveyor and Indian trader. Inured to the dangers and hazards of pioneer life, he was a typical frontiersman. He founded Connorsville, Ind., where he resided many years, afterwards moving to Hamilton county, that state, and then to Noblesville, where he died in 1855. He was a member of the Indiana legislature and held a number of minor positions in different localities where he lived. Like the early settlers of that period, he served in the Indian wars, and participated in the battle of Tippecanoe, the importance of which made the elder Harrison president of the United States. He rested at the ripe age of seventy-five.

The maiden name of General Connor’s mother was Elizabeth Chapman, and she was a native of New York. She is still living, having attained the great age of eighty-six.

Alexander H. Connor was born in Hamilton county, Ind., in 1832. He was reared on his father’s farm and received such an education as the common schools of that period afforded. He studied law under the tuition of Judge Earl S. Stone, afterward attending the New York law school, and was admitted to the bar at Noblesville in 1854, where he practiced till 1856, when he was elected a member of the state legislature. After serving his term in the legislature he located at Indianapolis, where he resided for a number of years, practicing his profession, taking an active part in the politics of the state, and being prominently connected with local interests in and around the capital city. In 1860 he was chosen chairman of the Indiana state republican central committee, and by his political sagacity and leadership the state threw its support to Lincoln. He was thus honored in 1862, 1866 and 1868. He was appointed postmaster at Indianapolis in 1861 by President Lincoln in recognition of his valuable political services, and held this position till the tragic death of Lincoln made Andrew Johnson president; then he tendered his resignation in anticipation of being removed. From 1862 to 1871 he was interested in the Indianapolis Journal, then the leading party organ of the state, and now one of the representative papers of the West. His newspaper experience, while a success politically, was a failure financially, and to free it from the embarrassment of debt, General Connor gave up the hard earnings of a successful career and began life again almost penniless. As many others had done, he turned his face westward, and in September, 1872, he formed a partnership with F. G. Hamer in the practice of law, which continued till Judge Hamer went on the bench.

General Connor possesses an aptitude for politics. He was a member of the constitutional convention in 1874, presidential elector in 1876, and has been elected to the senate three times, and is serving his third term at the present time. His sterling integrity gives him a hold upon the people that renders his political aspirations devoid of opposition.

His chosen profession has been the ambition of his life, and success has attended his efforts in this direction. He is a logical thinker, eloquent speaker, ripe lawyer, able legislator, good citizen, beloved neighbor, earnest, liberal, progressive and charitable without stint. He seems to have inherited the world-famed patriotic eloquence of the sons of old Erin. Whether on the hustings, the rostrum, or in the forum, the pathos of his earnest appeals, the rhetoric of a silver tongue, and the logic of a well-drilled legal mind, carry his audiences away. As an orator, he has few equals in the state, and the secret of this dramatic power lies in his profound earnestness. He will live in the history of Nebraska, for he has helped to make it.