William Bernard Conway (1802–1839) was an American politician and newspaperman who was the first secretary and first acting governor of Iowa Territory.
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1830, he started publishing The American Manufacturer, a newspaper supportive of the Democratic Party.
[4] While in Johnstown he founded a newspaper called the Mountaineer in early 1836; later in the same year he moved its publication to Ebensburg, Pennsylvania.
[4] In 1838, he was appointed Secretary of the newly established Iowa Territory by President Martin Van Buren.
Conway had never before held a political office; his appointment was said to have been in reward for his journalistic support of Van Buren and his predecessor Andrew Jackson.