Biography - DANIEL A. CONOVER

D. A. Conover, ex-circuit clerk and recorder, was born in Adams comity, Pennsylvania, on one of the farms where the battle of Gettysburg was afterward fought. About 1840 our subject with his parents moved to Owen county, Indiana; he was given a thorough schooling at the Bloomington, Indiana, state university and at twenty years of age he engaged with his brother in the drug business at Bowling Green, Clay county, Indiana. After a year he bought his brother's interest and owned the store until 1864. In 1862 he organized Company D. Seventy-First Indiana Volunteer Infantry. At the battle of Richmond, Kentucky, he was wounded and taken prisoner, but at night with some others escaped. The Seventy-First sustained such loss that the reorganization was abandoned. The remaining members returned to Terre Haute and there organized the Sixth Indiana Cavalry and Mr. Conover was commissioned major. Owing to disabilities sustained at Richmond he was mustered out at Knoxville, Tennessee, and on returning home he was appointed provost marshal of the seventh Indiana district with headquarters at Terre Haute; he was appointed inspector of interpublican ticket for mayor of Terre Haute. In 1869 he came to Tuscola where he afterward resided. He traveled for eleven years in the interests of a Cincinnati hat house until 1880, when he was elected to an office on the Republican ticket. On January 24, 1854, he married Miss Bradshaw N. Elkin, of Bowling Green, Indiana. Major Conover belonged to the Masonic lodge from the age of twenty-one years; was a Knight Templar of Melita Commandery and was circuit clerk and recorder. Mr. Conover was respected in Tuscola up until his death.

Extracted 09 Jun 2019 by Norma Hass from the Historical and Biographical Record of Douglas County, Illinois, published in 1900, pages 221-222.