William Conner

William Conner (December 10, 1777 – August 28, 1855) was an American trader, interpreter, military scout, community leader, entrepreneur, and politician.Before his death in 1807 at the age of eighty-nine, Richard established a successful trading post in Michigan and acquired more than 400 acres (160 hectares) of land in the area.Beginning in the 1820s, Conner used the wealth he had amassed from his ties to trading and the land cession treaties with Native Americans to become a landowner and successful business entrepreneur during Indiana's pioneer era.His brother, John, who settled near Cedar Grove, a white settlement in Indiana's Whitewater Valley area in 1803, acted as an intermediary to facilitate the sale of fur pelts and skins that William sent him.[8][9] In addition to operating a trading post, Conner and his business partner, William Marshall, profited from the land-cession treaties with the Native Americans and their removal from central Indiana.The treaty was signed on October 3, 1818, and set the terms for the removal of the White River Delaware from Indiana, including Conner's wife, Mekinges, and their six children.[9][15] Conner used the wealth he amassed from his trading post and payments he received from his government service to re-establish himself in the white community of Hamilton County, Indiana.Three months after his Delaware family's departure, Conner married seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Chapman, the step-daughter of John Finch, a recent settler.In 1823 Conner began the construction of a brick residence near the site of the family's log cabin on an estimated 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of land.[9][19] With cash reserves from his earlier work as a trader and involvement in Native American treaty negotiations, Conner acquired multiple landholdings in central Indiana.[22] His other civic interests included service as an interpreter for treaty negotiations with the Miami people in 1826 and the Potawatomi in 1832, as well as a guide for the Indiana militia as it prepared to participate in the Black Hawk War.Conner's legacy is linked to the important trading relations that he and his brother, John, established with the Native Americans along the west fork of the White River in the early 1800s.After living among the Delaware for nearly twenty years and serving as an agent, liaison, and interpreter, Conner made a personal fortune from this relationship that he expanded into further success as a landowner, merchant, and business entrepreneur.In 1823, Conner built a two-story Federal style brick house on the terrace edge of the west fork of the White River, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Noblesville, in Hamilton County, Indiana.)[30][31] Indianapolis pharmaceutical executive Eli Lilly Jr. purchased the Conner home and farm in 1934 and immediately began work to stabilize and restore the severely deteriorated house.Local architect Robert Frost Daggett and contractor Charles Latham supervised the stabilization and restoration work, as well as the addition of a new, six-columned porch overlooking the White River.