The William Conner House was a home where children were born and neighbors came to call, and travelers stopped for a warm bed and a generous table. Music filled the house as people talked about books, ideas, and the wider world beyond the river. Judges held court in the Public Room, while merchants and speculators struck deals on the back porch. Built in 1823 by William Conner, a fur trader, farmer, land speculator, miller, merchant, and politician, it stood on its original location with bricks made and fired on site. Designed as a traditional I-house with two rooms upstairs, two rooms down, and a kitchen on the back, it anchored a large farm and outbuildings that included a barn, smokehouse, and springhouse, shaping the lives of the family who lived there as well as the history of the county and the state.