Simon Barclay Conover Papers, 1891-1892

Simon Barclay Conover was born September 23, 1840, in Cranbury, New Jersey. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Nashville, after which he served briefly in the medical department of the Union Army in 1864. He served as a U.S. senator for Florida from 1873 to 1879. In 1880 he made an unsuccessful bid at the governorship of Florida, and in 1889 was appointed U.S. Surgeon at the quarantine station at Port Townsend, Washington. The next year he became president of the Board of Regents for the new Agricultural College and School of Sciences of the State of Washington, later renamed Washington State University, and served as a regent for about two years. He continued to practice medicine until his death on April 19, 1908.