Unknown County GaArchives Biographies.....Conner, Wilson 1768 - 1844 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 3, 2005, 12:25 am Author: J. H. Campbell WILSON CONNER Was born in Marlborough district, South Carolina, July 7th, 1768, and at about twenty-one years of age engaged in the ministry among the Methodists. About 1773, having become dissatisfied with the doctrine and discipline of that society, he was baptized at Cheraw, South Carolina, by Joshua Lewis, and was ordained as a Baptist minister in Effingham county, Georgia, in 1803, by Revs. Messrs. Peacock, Brewer and Cook. The next year he was excluded from the Great Ogeechee church, and remained in a backslidden state for several years. He was for eighteen years Justice of the Inferior Court in Montgomery county. He was likewise a member of the Legislature from the same county. He was at length turned from his backslidings, in the exercise of hearty repentance, and was restored to the church and the ministry. In his latter days his ministry was signally blessed. Many souls were added unto the Lord through his instrumentality. He was a warm and successful advocate of the temperance cause and of all similar institutions. He was principally occupied in itinerant service, to which he was much devoted. It may be said in truth that the entire State was his mission-field. In thirteen years he traveled over thirty-five thousand miles. For a time he acted as domestic missionary, under the patronage of the Georgia Baptist Convention, and then as an agent of the Board of Trustees of Mercer University. His person was commanding—frame large, though neither tall nor corpulent, dark complexion, with black eyes, deeply set. His voice was extraordinary, resembling more the rumbling of distant thunder than anything else. Those who ever heard him never forgot its sound. He appeared to take great pleasure in preaching, and was frequently heard to express the desire “that the last act of his life might be to preach the gospel and then be permitted to die in the pulpit." His wish in this respect was singularly fulfilled, for in the summer of 1844, having preached with great liberty and power in Telfair county from the words, "Verily, I say unto you the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live," he sat down and expired instantly, without the least struggle. He was then about seventy-six years old, and had been on the walls of Zion near fifty years. His descendants are quite numerous and very respectable. Additional Comments: From: GEORGIA BAPTISTS: HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL BY J. H. CAMPBELL, PERRY, GEORGIA. MACON, GA.: J. W. BURKE & COMPANY. 1874. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by J. H. CAMPBELL, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/unknown/bios/gbs703conner.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 3.3 Kb