John Uri Lloyd was born in 1849. His family moved to Florence when he was a small child. He was an eye-witness to the Civil War skirmish in Florence, which affected him through life. He became an apprentice in a pharmacy at about age 14 and soon memorized the entire pharmacopeia, in Latin, though he had little formal schooling.
After becoming a pharmaceutical manufacturer he would write while his kettles boiled, and finished a number of novels in this manner. One of the most well-known is Etidorhpa published in 1895. (The title is Aphrodite spelled backwards.) He also published a series about Florence, beginning with Stringtown on the Pike published in 1900. Of this series Warwick of the Knobs (1901) is often considered to be the best. He also published “Sam Hill Stories” in local periodicals, and these have been collected.
Lloyd died in 1936 and is buried in Hopeful Lutheran Church Cemetery in Florence.