William Conner (d. December 19, 1814) was the speaker of the Mississippi Territory House of Representatives in 1803. [1] He was married to Mary Savage, a granddaughter of pioneering Mississippi colonist Tacitus Gaillard of South Carolina. [2] Conner and his wife moved to the Natchez District in about 1790, according to a finding aid for Conner family papers held at Louisiana State University. [3] This was reportedly shortly after their marriage, and once they arrived they "...were domiciled at Oakhill, a part of the Spanish grant to Tacitus Gaillard, just across the creek from Beau Pres. Later they resided at Berkeley, a grand house having been built by [his mother-in-law] Anne Savage, and there they reared a large family of children. William Conner was elected to the first territorial legislature...but political life not suiting his trend of mind, he soon retired from this position and followed his scholarly bent, finding in classical literature and the studies that his own library afforded him all that made life happy and interesting to his high mental calibre. He and his wife were buried in the family graveyard at Berkeley, and on their marble tomb are two wonderful busts of them, sculptured, in Italy." [2] He had a plantation along the Homochitto River. [4]
