It was in mid-January 1876 that Eugene Victor Jean Baptiste Dupont (1832-1881) arrived in Elkhart at Conn's invitation. A French instrument maker who had previously worked for Henry Distin in England, Dupont was the inventor of several patents for brass instruments. The cornerstone of the subsequent Conn-Dupont partnership, which lasted only three years, was the production of the Four-in-One cornet, for which Conn and Dupont held a joint patent. Built to be playable in four different keys--E-flat, C, B-flat, and A--this model represents just the first step in a forty-year endeavor to produce what Conn referred to as the "perfect" cornet. By March 1879, the Conn-Dupont partnership was legally dissolved (although Dupont stayed on in Elkhart until April 1880), leaving the 35-year-old Conn sole owner of all the property rights and interests in the company, located by then at the northwest corner of Elkhart Avenue and East Jackson Street. Dupont died from lung disease in Washington, D.C., just fifteen months later.
Detail of the signature on a cornet in E-flat/C/B-flat/A (high and low pitch) by Conn and Dupont, Elkhart, ca. 1876-1877. Serial no. 162. Four-in-One model. This example is catalog no. 1196 in the collections of the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota, and was a gift to the Museum from Harold P. Sutton, McCook, Nebraska, 1975. Photograph by Simon R. H. Spicer. © 1997-2009 by The National Music Museum.
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