Fresno County, California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


HORATIO SEYMOUR CONNER.� Like many other residents of 
Fresno County, Horatio S. Conner traveled over most of the states in the 
Union before making his choice of a locality for agricultural develop- 
ment, and he is now one of the Valley's most enthusiastic boosters. 
Born in Auburn, N. Y., January 30, 1863, he is a son of Joseph and Mathilda 
(Steele) Conner, the father a native of Ireland and a shoemaker by trade, 
first in Auburn, N. Y., and later in Cleveland, Ohio. He answered the call 
of his country at the outbreak of the Civil War, enlisting in the Forty-fifth 
New York Regiment, Volunteer Infantry, and served for four years, on his 
return making his home in Cleveland. Both parents are now deceased, and 
of their eleven children, five are now living. 

Horatio Seymour Conner was educated in the public schools of Auburn 
until 1879, when he removed with his parents to Cleveland, and when sixteen 
years old was apprenticed there as electrical engineer in the Brush Electric 
Light Company, continuing his studies at night school in the meantime. 
After three years as an apprentice, he remained with the company seventeen 
years longer, as an expert electrician, and built electric light plants for them, 
and also electric street car lines, all over the' United States. He put in the 
big power plant in Virginia City, Nev., and one at Eldorado, Cal., also in the 
old Brush Electric Light Company plant in San Francisco. His travels took 
him all over the states, from Maine to New Orleans, and Boston to San Fran- 
cisco. 

After thirty-three years on the road as an expert electrician, the last 
five years as salesman for the Brush Electric Light Company, Mr. Conner felt 
he had had enough, and decided to settle down, having always looked forward 
to California since his first trip here, in 1889. In 1916 he bought his ranch 
of forty acres on Belmont Avenue, Fresno, and engaged in viticulture and 
horticulture, his land being planted principally to muscats and malagas, 
with a border of fig trees. He has put in modern improvements, installing 
an electric motor for lighting and power, and a pumping plant, also run by 
electricity, and he devotes the same energy and thoroughness to his land 
cultivation which made him so successful in the world at large. He is a mem- 
ber of the California Associated Raisin Company and at all times favors proj- 
ects for the advancement of Central California. 

The marriage of Mr. Conner united him with Mrs. Clara (Mitchell) 
Andrus, a native of Michigan, in which state the ceremony occurred. Both 
Mr. and Mrs. Conner are members of the First Presbyterian Church, Fresno.