Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/267

NAME CONNER 245 CONNER moved to Concord, N. H., and passed the rest of his Hfe serving this city and state. From 1872 to 1876 he was city physician, having pre- viously, in 1866, secured the passage of a city ordinance requiring a house-to-house sanitary inspection, the first law of its sort in the coun- try. In 1869 he became secretary of the New Hampshire Medical Society (founded 1791) and held the office until 1906, except for the two years, 1880 and 1881, when he was vice- president and president, respectively. The organization of a state board of health was due in great measure to the efforts of Dr. Conn, and when in 1881 the bill was passed that created it he was made president, an office he held until his retirement. From 1886 to 1896 he lectured on hygiene at the Dartmouth Medical School, and in the years 1877 and 1881 he was elected railroad com- missioner. He published a "History of the New Hampshire Surgeons in the War of Rebellion," Concord, 1906, an attractive book of 558 pages. Dr. Conn married Helen M. Sprague, of East Randolph, Vt., May 25, 1859, and they had two sons. She died in 1915, after which Dr. Conn made his home with his son, in Wayne, Pennsylvania. He was for a long time at the head of the surgical- staff of the Margaret Pillsbury Hospital and he was a member of many medical and other societies. An active life in the service of his city and state was brought to a close by old age, March 24, 1916. Force fulness stood out in every lineament of his rugged and serious face. Walter L. Burrage. Trans. New Hamp. Med. Soc, 1916, 215-216. Portrait. 1916. Phys. and Surgs. of Amer., I. A. Watson, Concord, N. H., 1896, 797-798. Conner, Phineas Sanborn (1839-1909) Dr. Phineas Sanborn Conner, surgeon of Cincinnati, the oldest son of Dr. Phineas San- born Conner and Eliza Angelina Fair Pritch- ard Hook Sanborn, was born in Westchester, Pennsylvania, August 23, 1839. Dr. Conner's father and mother were first cousins. Dr. Phineas Sanborn Conner, Sr., was the son of Gideon Conner, of Newburyport, Mass., and Hannah Sanborn, of East Kingston, New Hampshire. Gideon Conner was the son of Joseph Conner, a soldier of the Revolution, and Hannah Chase. In the Chase line Dr. P. S. Conner, Jr., was in the eighth order of descent from Aquilla Chase, who came from Cornwall, England, and settled in Hampton, New Hamp- shire, prior to 1639. Dr. P. S. Conner, Jr., was therefore, twice descended from John San- born III. Lieutenant John Sanborn came from England with his maternal grandfather, Stephen Bachiler, landing in Boston Harbor, June 5, 1532. "Father Bachiler," as he was known in the annals of early New England, re- ceived the degree B. A. at St. John's College, Oxford, England, September 5, 1585. When he was long past ninety years of age, he returned to England, and died there in his one hun- dred and first year. Among his descendants were Daniel Webster, Justine Smith Morrill, Seth Low, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John Greenleaf Whittier. The last made frequent mention of Bachiler in his poems. The "Bachiler eye," variously described as bril- liant, keen, piercing or penetrating, reappeared constantly in his descendants ; Webster, Haw- thorne and Whittier were said to possess it. Those of us who knew Dr. Conner intimately will remember that look when he was amused or excited. Dr. Conner was of the ninth gen- eration in descent from "Father Bachiler." It would be difficult to find a more striking illustration of the transmission of brilliant qualities as the result of repeated intermar- riages of relations through so many genera- tions. In 1841 Dr. Conner's parents moved to Cam- den County, North Carolina, and in 1844 they came to Cincinnati. In 1855 P. S. Conner, Jr., entered Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., and graduated in 1859. He attended lectures at the Medical College of Ohio in 1858-9, and at Jefferson Medical College in 1860-61, where he graduated in the latter year. During his student life he was for some time acting assistant physician in the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford, Connecticut, and after graduation he spent six months in the hos- pitals in New York. In November, 1861, he was acting assistant surgeon at Columbia Hos- pital, Washington, and in April, 1862, was commissioned assistant surgeon. Immediately after the battle of Antietam, September 16 and 17, 1862, he was sent to the field with a corps of officers, and was there engaged for three weeks, sleeping at times on the field, and more than once in a coffin stuffed with straw. There he developed a sepsis, resulting in the loss of a finger joint. He was then furloughed for some time. Later he was surgeon to Duryea's battery of light artillery at the siege of Port Hudson. Soon after he was detailed for service under Gen- eral Ben Butler in New Orleans, and fitted up and took command of University Hospital, December 26, 1862. remaining in charge of the hospital until ordered by General Banks to take a corps of surgeons and nurses on the Red River campaign. Later he was detailed