Edward J. Conover

Edward J. Conover was born in Montgomery County, New York, on September 27, 1858.¹ Details on his youth are scarce, but newspaper reports from later in his life claimed that “for several years he traveled the grand circuit with the celebrated Jack Feek ‘Gentleman Jack,’ Budd Doble, and other world-wide-known [horse] trainers and drivers.”²

It is unclear when exactly he became the foreman at the White House Stables, though he likely did during the presidency of William McKinley and continued under President Theodore Roosevelt.³ As foreman, Conover oversaw the White House Stables including the horses within and the coachmen and hostlers who handled them. Articles claimed that Conover “knows more about splints, spavins, shoe blisters, and the heaves than any man in the Roosevelt administration” and “could tell the age of a horse by his cough.”⁴ Another newspaper article stated: “It is owing to Mr. Conover’s wide experience and watchful care that the White House stables and everything in and about them present such a neat and wholesome appearance.”⁵ Conover left his position either at the end of Roosevelt's presidency or sometime early in the presidency of Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, likely because Taft preferred cars to horses, and began to retire the White House stables to create the first White House garage.⁶ 

Conover passed away on February 21, 1932 and was buried in Lewinsville Presbyterian Cemetery in McLean, Virginia.⁷