US Congressman, Business Entrepreneur. He was born in Phelps, Ontario County, New York and moved with his family to Elkhart, Indiana in 1851. He learned to play the cornet at a young age and with the outbreak of the American Civil War he enlisted in the US Army on May 18, 1861 at the age of seventeen and was assigned to a regimental band. He reenlisted on December 12, 1863 and at the age of nineteen he was elevated to the rank of Captain. During the Assault on Petersburg on July 30, 1864, he was wounded and taken prisoner. He managed to escape twice but was recaptured and spent the remainder of the war in captivity, being honorably discharged from the Army on July 28, 1865. He returned to Elkhart and established a grocery and baking business, and also played cornet in the local community band. His entrance into the musical instrument manufacturing business was the result of a split lip that he received in a fight outside of a local saloon. His upper lip was severely lacerated, causing him discomfort when he played his cornet. In addition to running his grocery store, he also made rubber stamps and re-plated silverware, and came up with the idea to adhere rubber stamp material to the rim of a mouthpiece so it would conform to his lips, which it did. Realizing there could be a tremendous demand for his invention, he began to contemplate manufacturing his new mouthpiece. In 1874, he started to turn out his mouthpieces and was soon in full production. He patented his rubber-rimmed mouthpiece in 1875 and soon met Eugene Victor Baptiste DuPont, a brass instrument maker and designer and a former employee of Henry Distin of London. In January 1876, he joined with DuPont under the name of Conn & DuPont, and DuPont created Conn's first instrument, the Four-in-One cornet, with crooks allowing the horn to be played in the keys of E-flat, C, B-flat, and A. By 1877, his business had outgrown the back of his grocery store, and he purchased an idle factory building in Elkhart. His partnership with DuPont was dissolved by March 1879, but he was successful in attracting skilled craftsmen from Europe to his factory, and in this manner he expanded his operation so that by 1905, he had the world's largest musical instrument factory producing a full line of brass and wind instruments, strings, percussion, and a portable organ. In 1880, he was elected mayor of Elkhart on the Democratic ticket. He was re-elected in 1882 but did not finish the term. In 1884, he organized the 1st Regiment of Artillery in the Indiana Legion and became its first Colonel, a military title which stayed with him throughout the remainder of his life. He was the first commander of the Elkhart Commandery of the Knights Templar and also served as Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias, being reelected many times as Commander of the local G.A.R. post. Ten days before the general election of 1888, he was drafted as an emergency candidate for the Indiana House of Representatives by the Democrats, and won the election. On October 15, 1889, he founded a local newspaper, the Elkhart Daily Truth, which still exists today as the Elkhart Truth. In 1892 he was elected to the US Congress as Representative of the 13th District of Indiana, serving only one term. He was re-nominated for a second congressional term but he declined when the Democratic party would not allow him to run on a "reformed" platform. He heavily invested money in other businesses, one of which was an early electrical generating system. In 1904 he constructed a powerhouse and provided electrical service as a competitor to the Indiana and Michigan Electric Company, who later bought him out at a financial loss. As a result of this setback along with other failed business adventures, a costly lawsuit filed against him by a former company manager, and the expansion of a third musical instrument factory and its subsequent loss as a result of a fire, he and his wife executed a trust deed in April 1911 for $200,000 that covered all their personal possessions including a seagoing yacht and lake motor launch, numerous real estate holdings, stock holdings, and ownership of his musical instrument company and local newspaper, for the purposes of bonding his company's indebtedness and securing working capital. In 1915, all of his holdings were bought by a group of local investors and the company was incorporated under the name C.G. Conn Ltd, with the Conn trademark being retained on the musical instruments. Shortly afterward, he and his wife divorced and he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he died. Once a very wealthy and influential man, he died almost penniless. His remains were brought back to Elkhart, Indiana for burial. At the time of his death, his estate did not have enough money to afford a grave marker and a collection was taken at his former horn factory to purchase one.