Charles G. Conn

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Charles G. Conn
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Indiana's 13th district
In office
March 4, 1893 – March 4, 1895
Preceded byBenjamin F. Shively
Succeeded byLemuel W. Royse
Member of the Indiana House of Representatives
for Elkhart, Noble, and DeKalb
In office
January 10, 1889 – January 8, 1891
Preceded byWilliam M. Van Slyke
Succeeded byNorman Teal
Personal details
Born(1844-01-29)January 29, 1844
1st Michigan Volunteer Sharpshooters Regiment
Battles/warsAmerican Civil War

Charles Gerard Conn (January 29, 1844 – January 5, 1931) was an entrepreneur, band instrument manufacturer, newspaper publisher, and U.S. Representative from Indiana for one term from 1893 to 1895.

Biography

Early life and education

Charles Gerard Conn was born in

Phelps, New York, on January 29, 1844. In 1850, he accompanied his family to Three Rivers, Michigan, and in the following year to Elkhart, Indiana. Little is known about his early life, other than that he learned to play the cornet
.

Civil War

With the outbreak of the

Silver Citation Star on the Civil War Campaign Medal
for gallantry in action.

Career

After the war he engaged in the grocery and bakery business. In 1871, while serving as a band leader in Buchanan, Michigan, Conn badly injured his hand while working at the local zinc horse collar-pad factory.[1] The accident forced Conn to switch from violin to cornet.

In 1877, Conn and his wife, Catherine, relocated to

C.G. Conn
Company, a major instrument manufacturer, in Elkhart.

Charles Conn was elected Mayor of Elkhart in 1880.

Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias, and was re-elected many times as Commander of the local G.A.R.
post.

In 1880, Conn was elected Mayor of Elkhart on the Democratic ticket. He was re-elected in 1882 but did not finish the term. Ten days before the general election in 1888, Conn was drafted as an emergency Democratic candidate for the Indiana House of Representatives, and won the election.

Conn founded a newspaper, the Elkhart Daily Truth, on 15 October 1889, which is still operating as The Elkhart Truth.[3] He published the monthly Trumpet Notes which he circulated amongst his employees and dealers. He also published a scandal sheet called The Gossip which, along with the town doings, he used occasionally to attack his competitors and enemies.

Congress

Conn was elected as a

Washington Times, and conducted a sensational campaign against alleged vice
in the city. Eventually he found himself as a defendant in a big damage suit, but won the case. Sometime later he disposed of the paper.

Later career

band instruments at Elkhart, Indiana, while also investing heavily in other businesses. In 1904 Conn constructed a powerhouse and provided electrical service as a competitor to the Indiana and Michigan Electric Company, who later bought out Conn's service at a great loss to himself. This failed venture, the building of Conn's third factory and its loss to fire, and Conn's loss of a costly lawsuit filed against him by a former company manager resulted in Conn amassing a large amount of debt. In 1911, in an effort to bond Conn's debts and secure working capital, Conn and his wife executed a trust deed for $200,000 covering all their possessions, with the longest bond to mature in ten years. The deed included, in addition to the horn factory, what was then known as the Angledile Scale Company, and The Elkhart Truth, some sixty descriptions of real estate in Elkhart and vicinity, various real estate mortgages, 125 shares of stock in the Simplex Motor Car Company of Mishawaka, Indiana
, a seagoing yacht, a lake motor launch, and much valuable personal property. Conn also lost considerable face when he was ordered by a judge to publicly apologize for publishing inflammatory comments about J. W. Pepper. The Musical Courier picked up on the legal problems and reported about how Conn was knowingly making false statements about Pepper. In his published apology, Conn attributed his aberrant behavior on an addiction to tobacco.

In 1915 Conn's growing debt crisis forced him to seek a buyer for his assets, and all of Conn's holdings were bought by a group of investors led by Carl Dimond Greenleaf, whom Conn had met during his years in Washington, D.C., and invested in some grain mills in Ohio which Greenleaf owned. Initially Conn held onto ownership of The Elkhart Truth, but a few months after the sale of his other holdings, Conn sold The Elkhart Truth to Greenleaf and local entrepreneur Andrew Hubble Beardsley.

Retirement and death

The sale of Conn's holdings was detrimental to his marriage, and he and his wife Kate divorced. In 1916 Conn retired and moved to

Los Angeles, California
, where he married Suzanne Cohn. Their son, Charles Gerard Conn III, was born in 1918.

Conn authored books in his retirement, including The Sixth Sense, Prayer: Brain Cell Reformation (1916), For the Good of the World. Finding the Real God (1919), and The Wonder Book: How to Achieve Success (1923). Conn died on January 5, 1931, in Los Angeles, and was interred in Grace Lawn Cemetery, Elkhart, Indiana.[4] Once a very wealthy and influential man, he died almost penniless. His estate didn't have enough money in it to afford a grave marker, and a hat was passed around the horn factory to collect enough money to buy one.

Mrs. Conn was permitted to remain in the Conn's Elkhart home, the Charles Gerard Conn Mansion, where she lived until her death in 1924. The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.[5]

See also

  • C.G. Conn

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Banks, Margaret Downie (Ph.D.), Senior Curator of Musical Instruments, National Music Museum. "A Brief History of the Conn Company (1874–present)". Vermillion, South Dakota. Archived from the original on 25 January 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Ksander, Yaël (15 September 2008). "Conn Instruments". Retrieved 22 February 2012.
  3. ^ Banks, Margaret Downie (Ph.D.), Senior Curator of Musical Instruments, National Music Museum. "Col. Conn's Journalistic and Political Pursuits (1889–1897)". Vermillion, South Dakota. Archived from the original on 25 January 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "Conn, Charles Gerard, (1844–1931)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
  5. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.

Sources

Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Indiana's 13th congressional district
1893–1895 		Succeeded by
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