Bio: Connor, Robert (1881)

Contact: Janet Schwarze.

----Surnames: Connor, McLeish

----Source: History of Northern Wis. (Wood County, Wis.) 1881, page 1214

ROBERT CONNOR, lumberman and merchant, Auburndale, was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, Nov. 25, 1838. His father, William Connor, who was a farmer and canvasser, came in 1855, with his three sons, Robert, John and James, to Belle Isle, then to Stratford, Canada; and the following year, the mother came to them, with the rest of the family, to Stratford, where they settled and followed farming. Here their father died, Nov. 11, 1860. The three brothers, Robert, James and John, came to Wood Co., Wis., in 1873, and commenced making clearings in the dense woods, for a place to build mills and dwellings. They were the first settlers in that immediate vicinity, and having built a steam saw-mill, a planing mill, a shingle, lath, stave and heading mill, a store and dwellings, they named the place Auburndale. Here their mother came to live with her sons, and her eyesight failing, she learned to read with her fingers in her raised-letter Bible they obtained for her, such as is printed for the blind. She returned to Scotland, in 1878, at the age of seventy-five years, where she still remains among the scenes of her childhood. Robert was married, Jan. 5, 1861, in Canada, to Miss Mary McLeish, of Perthshire, Scotland. They have eight children — Maggie, Jessie, Willie, Annie, Mary, Lizzie, Aggie, and Robert. He has been Postmaster ever since an office was opened in Auburndale. He is also express agent, Town Treasurer, and School District Treasurer. He is the general manager of the business of the firm of R. Connor & Co.