Biographical sketch extracted from:

Biographical and historical record of Adams and Wells counties, Indiana. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1887. p. 953.

JOHN S. CONRAD, farmer and stock raiser, Harrison Township, is a native of Virginia, born in Harrison County, March 7, 1807, a son of John and Susan (Smith) Conrad, who were also natives of Virginia. His father died at the advanced age of ninety years. He was a son of John Conrad, who was of German descent, and lived to be one hundred years old. Our subject’s maternal grandfather, John Smith, was a native of the State of Virginia, and of German ancestry. Our subject was reared to manhood on a farm in his native county, where he remained until attaining the age of twenty years. He then went to Hocking County, Ohio, and some four months later his father’s family followed, and there purchased 100 acres of partially improved land. Our subject assisted his father clear and improve his 100-acre tract, he remaining with his parents until 1836, when he came to Wells County, Indiana, and entered 160 acres of Government land on section 25, Harrison Township. He then went to Noble County, and bought a tract of twenty acres of heavily timbered land, which he cleared and improved. He was married June 2, 1844, to Miss Chloe Ann May, a native of Pennsylvania, and of the six children born to this union four yet survive—Frances W., George A., Sarah E. and Susan. Mary and Samantha are deceased. November 15, 1844, Mr. Conrad returned to his Wells County land, then a dense wilderness, and here he built a hewed log cabin, into which he moved, and began clearing his land, and here he has since followed farming on the farm which he has owned for half a century. He is a self-made man, having by his own persevering industry and good management accumulated a competence for his declining years, and by his honorable and upright dealings has gained the confidence and respect of the entire community. In politics he is a Democrat, casting his first presidential vote at the second election of Andrew Jackson, and has since voted at every presidential election. Mrs. Conrad is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.