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Prominent Local Figure’s Bed Donated to Jefferson County Museum

photo by: Christopher Dacanay

Dennis Milko, president of the Jefferson County Historical Association, gestures at the donated bed frame that once belonged to Pearson Boyd Conn, former publisher of the daily and weekly Herald.

Disposing of unwanted or unused furniture usually isn’t the toughest decision. For Dr. Norman Wetterau, however, finding a new home for his bed frame took considerably more thought given its historical significance, rooted in a prominent local figure.

Constructed of walnut wood, the bed frame has a 7-foot-tall headboard and elegant ornamentation. The frame is part of a bedroom set that features an equally stylish dresser with a marble top, as well as an attachable, full-length mirror. All pieces are of the Renaissance Revival Style, having been constructed around the mid-1800s.

The set once belonged to Pearson Boyd Conn, publisher of the daily and weekly Herald — which would later merge with the Steubenville Star in 1897 to form the present-day Herald-Star newspaper.

In November, Wetterau donated the set to the Jefferson County Historical Association Museum, where he hopes it will bolster interest in local history.

Dennis Milko, president of the historical association, said the set will assist the association in its mission: “To preserve, perpetuate, promote and disseminate knowledge of the history of the County of Jefferson and the City of Steubenville, Ohio.”

“We like to get a history of what our donations are, and we have a really good history of this bed,” Milko said. “So, when folks come in for a tour, and they ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over that bed, we have a lot of stories and history to tell about the bed, which makes for an interesting time for visitors.”

Pearson Boyd Conn was born in Beaver County, Pa., on July 11, 1823. He was the ninth child of 10 born to William C. Conn of Delaware and Ann Pearson of Shippensburg, Pa.

According to a Jan. 24, 1907, article in the centennial edition of the Herald-Star, P.B. Conn “set out to learn the printer’s business” at 13 years old, having “grown up in a printing office.”

Owner of the Beaver Star for one year, Conn relocated at 22 years old to Steubenville, where he published the daily and weekly Messenger and the Steubenville Democrat. Conn also published the Steubenville Daily and Weekly News, which he’d consolidate with the Herald after his acquisition of the latter.

More than a century later, Wetterau was working as a family practice and addiction medicine doctor in Dansville, N.Y. He’s the grandson of Norman Wyatt and Grace Conn, the daughter of P.B. Conn, making Wetterau the great-grandson of P.B. Conn.

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