AARON H. CONROW
Aaron H. Conrow was born June 19, 1824, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He spent part of his boyhood days at, or near
Pekin, Illinois, and from that place, with his parents, moved to Missouri, and settled in Ray county. Here, by
dint of his own energy, he obtained a pretty thorough education, teaching school part of the time in order to get
means to complete the same. In this he was very successful. He then chose the law as a profession, and by rigid
economy and sedulous application, succeeded in making an eminent lawyer. On the 17th of May, 1828, he was married
to Miss Mary Ann Quesenberry, daughter of David H. and Lucinda Quesenberry, of Richmond, Missouri. From this union
resulted the following children: David, Benjamin, William S., and Mamie. He was appointed by the governor, judge
of the first probate court established in Ray county. From January, 1857, to January, 1861, he was circuit attorney
of the fifth judicial circuit of Missouri; an office that had previously been filled by such eminent lawyers as
Hamilton R. Gamble, Abiel Leonard, Charles French, Robert W. Wells, Amos Rees, Thomas C. Burch, Peter H. Burnett,
George W. Dunn, and others, but by none of them more zealously and efficiently than by the subject of this sketch.
He was a brilliant and successful advocate, a fine judge of law, and never descended to even the slightest artifice
to gain the advantage of an opposing brother lawyer. He was above all littleness, open, candid, ingenuous. He was
the preceptor of three young men who afterward became able and prominent lawyers; one of them is now a circuit
judge, and the biography of another, who lives in Richmond, appears in this volume. Aaron H. Conrow was ever the
fast friend of education, and no man contributed more liberally than he, in proportion to his means, to the support
of institutions of learning. He was ever a safe counselor in matters of moment relative to the town and community
in which he lived. In 1860 he was elected to the state general assembly - a democrat worthy to be trusted. He was
in the general assembly at the beginning of the war, and sided with the south. He was instrumental in recruiting
and equipping the first company organized in Ray for the defense of what he believed to be right. He ranked as
colonel in the Missouri state guards, a military organization he had helped to create by his vote in the general
assembly. He was by a majority of his comrades elected to represent his district in the confederate congress, and
in that capacity, as in all others, served with singular zeal and promptness. He was present at the first meeting
and at the final adjournment of that body. At the close of the war the amnesty agreed upon did not extend to members
of the confederate congress, and fearing that if he fell into the hands of the successful party his life would
be taken, he went to Mexico, and soon after arriving in that country, he was brutally murdered by a band of Mexican
soldiers on or about the 25th of August, A. D. 1865.
Ray County History 1881 |