James Sevier Conway (1796-1855) was a Democratic politician in the state of Arkansas during the antebellum era. He was the first man elected governor of Arkansas following its admission to the Union as a state in 1836. Though enjoying wide name recognition and political support during his career, his term as governor was afflicted by economic troubles, including effects of the Panic of 1837 and a crisis in the state's banking system. Nonetheless, Arkansas enjoyed significant growth during this time.
Conway was born on December 4, 1796 in Greene County, Tennessee, the son of Thomas and Anne (Rector) Conway. The Conways were a relatively wealthy family on the southern frontier, and were related to the Sevier family, which had distinguished itself in the American Revolution. In 1818, the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where James was trained as a land surveyor by his maternal uncle, Elias Rector, then surveyor general for Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri.
Through his uncle's influence, James and his older brother Henry were appointed as public-land surveyors for the Arkansas Territory in 1820, with the specific task of determining its western and southern boundaries. Conway's surveying activity would prove controversial, as he drew the western boundary too far to the west and thus wrongly included some 100,000 acres belonging to the Choctaw nation within the territory, sparking a legal dispute that was not resolved until the 1880s. Simultaneous with performing his duties as a surveyor, Conway obtained a plantation for himself in Lafayette County (eventually expanding to over 2,000 acres, worked by 80 slaves), co-owned a bathhouse in Hot Springs, and in 1826 was married to Mary Jane Bradley, daughter of a prominent pioneer family in southwest Arkansas, with whom he would have ten children.
Following the death of his brother Henry in a duel in 1827, Conway became de facto leader of the family, and began the pursuit of a political career. In 1831, he campaigned for and won a seat in the territorial legislature, representing Lafayette and Union Counties, and the following year was named surveyor general of the territory by President Andrew Jackson. Conway owed his political rise not only to Jackson's patronage, but also to his membership in a network of families interrelated by blood and/or marriage, whose leaders held important a variety of elected and appointed offices. These included the Rectors, the Johnsons, the Seviers, and the Conways themselves. This network, collectively known as "the Family" or "the Dynasty," would dominate Arkansas politics until the eve of the Civil War.[1]
Immediately following Arkansas' admission to the Union as a state in June 1836, elections were held for its first state government. As a supporter of Jackson, Conway (like the rest of the Family) identified with the Democratic Party, and owing to his political connections and his prominence as surveyor was able to win the party's nomination for governor. Conway chose not to actively campaign in person, instead writing letters to key political figures and Little Rock newspapers to explain his positions; nonetheless, the Family's political influence, and the popularity of the Democrats within the state, enabled him to win a decisive victory over his Whig opponent, Absalom Fowler.
As governor, Conway's policies strongly emphasized development of the new state's infrastructure. He supported the creation of a public-education system, lobbied for the establishment of a federal arsenal in Little Rock, and called on the legislature to create a supervisory board of road and canal construction and to establish a commission to oversee the sale of public lands, funds from which would go towards the creation of a state university. The legislature refused to do so, however, and Arkansas would not have a university until after the Civil War.
Conway also promoted the establishment of a state banking system, which would guarantee the stability of state government finances and also promote economic development. The legislature was more cooperative in these efforts, with bills being passed for the creation of a State Bank and a Real Estate Bank. Both institutions proved unstable, however, due to mismanagement by the bank operators (some outright embezzling the money entrusted to them), overextension of credit, and the general economic depression brought on by the Panic of 1837. Fallout from the failure of these banks would plague Arkansas for several decades, and Conway was heavily criticized by some for not providing firmer oversight.
Sick for much of his term, and facing a challenge from popular Congressman Archibald Yell, Conway decided not to seek reelection in 1840. He retired to his plantation in Lafayette County, where he once again became active in local affairs and played a key role in the establishment of Lafayette Academy, an institution of higher education, in 1842. He died on March 3, 1855, after a bout with pneumonia, and was buried on his estate.