William Conway by W. D. Ritter

was a native of South Carolina. When a boy he was kidnaped on the seashore and taken to Cuba and kept there three years, then brought back. While there he picked grapes. He said the pickers were allowed to eat at the first and last pickings, but at no other. When making tree sugar the children were allowed to eat at the first and last makings, but at none else. He was a natural mechanic and made his own pocketknives would use no other. He made excellent rifles, locks, triggers and all. The only lock of those days was the flintlock, much more complex than any lock of the present.

Mr. Conway’s locks had to be double-bridled inside and out and have a "fly" on the tumbler – all these of the best type; then the shooting of his gun must be so good that, to use his own words, he could hit a twenty-five cent piece a hundred yards.

He served eight years in the army of the Revolution. He helped bury so many of his comrades that he said, when he was at the age of eighty-six, he wanted to be buried soldier fashion; that is, to be wrapped in whatever he died on, like the soldier in his blanket, and laid in the grave, and yet he made a great many coffins for others, for which he never would take a cent of pay. Whether the wish was complied with at his burial I do not know. He never took a cent of pension. His reasons were that he considered the risking of life in war to be above money.

He was in good health all the time during the war, was never wounded and thought the service to be but the debt that the able, capable men owed to their country – that he was a able to make a living as anybody and was willing to do it.

He was a pioneer frontiersman, a hunter, farmer, and general mechanic. He put his time to making articles of the highest usefulness – the axe, plow, and all other tools used in that day. He coul build a cabin in all its parts, then make everything that was used in and about it.

He made everything used in making clothing – spinning wheels, looms etc. To name all would include things that people of the present (many of them) could not understand. He was low of stature, a little stooped in the shoulders, quick in action, united the quietest mind to the most dauntless courage.

In the wilderness of Kentucky, where Mr. Conway would push out alone to hunt a new home, he was calm, though surrounded by ravenous beasts, and savage men. His health was perfect, even when sleeping on the ground in all kinds of weather. He died an incredible amount of work with the uttermost patience an method. He died at the age of eight-eight years. When alone in the wilderness of Kentucky, here is a supper from Mr. Conway’s own cook book: Stick a piece of fat bear meat before the fire on a stick to broil. Just under it a piece of fish on another stick. As the bear meat broils the grease drops on the fish; the stick the hunter’s knife in the fish, work it around to let the grease down in. Pester dishes, plates, and spoons, as well as the moulds they were run in, were among the articles of his production. He was buried at Ooley’s mill on Richland Creek.

Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Ind. With Reminiscences of Pioneer Days, Illustrated (1908, B. F. Bowen & Co. Indianapolis, Indiana) Vol. 1 Pg. 93

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Biographical Memoirs of Greene County, Ind. With Reminiscences of Pioneer Days, Illustrated (1908, B. F. Bowen & Co. Indianapolis, Indiana) Vol. 1 Pg. 93