Louis L. Conrad was born in Prussia (modern-day Germany) on June 24, 1817, to John N. and Fredericka Conrad. The family immigrated to America by the 1830s and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Conrad enrolled at the University of Virginia in 1840 to study math, chemistry, and moral philosophy. He transferred to Hampden-Sydney College a year later, and he graduated in 1843.

Conrad then enrolled at Western Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian institution in Pittsburgh. In the fall of 1844, he spent four months ministering to Pittsburgh’s German population, distributing more than 1,000 Bibles and religious tracts. The American Tract Society highlighted Conrad’s efforts at its annual meeting, observing that he hoped to make a “permanent effort on behalf of his countrymen.” The local presbytery granted him a license to preach in 1845, and he became an ordained minister the following year. He married Mary Lowther sometime in the 1840s, and they had at least four children together: Louis W., born around 1848; John Merle, born around 1850; Charles, born around 1852; and Mary, born around 1856.

Around 1849, Conrad accepted a call to preach in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He returned to Pennsylvania soon afterward, spending two years preaching in Murrysville. Then, in 1852, the Presbyterian Church transferred him to Manchester, a small community near Pittsburgh. In March 1854, Conrad and other Pittsburgh ministers signed a “remonstrance” against the pending Kansas-Nebraska Act. They protested the bill “in the name of Humanity and Liberty, for the honor of our country and its influence over the world.”

Conrad remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, although he devoted most of his time to his family and his ministerial duties. In April 1865, he attended a “mass meeting” in Manchester to mourn the death of President Abraham Lincoln. He helped draft resolutions expressing the “deep sorrow of the community” and praying that God would “protect, guide and bless [President Andrew Johnson] in the administration of the affairs of the nation.” Conrad then delivered a speech “full of patriotic ferver [sic], and Christian sentiment.”

Conrad’s health deteriorated during the 1860s, and one writer observed that he was “much afflicted by bodily disease.” Despite his illness, however, he remained at his post and “persevered in preaching Christ.” He died in Manchester on either November 10 or 11, 1867.

Documents:

Louis L. Conrad Protests the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Louis L. Conrad Mourns Lincoln's Death