From HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, p. 471

LETTERMAN W. CONN, M.D., has been a resident of the Pacific coast since 1862, living twenty 
years of that time in Nevada, and since 1883 in California.  He was born in Muskingum County, 
Ohio, and was brouht up in Zanesville, where his father practiced medicine for forty-five years.

He received a primary education in the public schools, and was trained by his father, with the 
view to the medical profession, until the age of eighteen, when he left home for California 
by the Panama route.  After some time in this State, the excitement attending the opening of 
the Comstock Mine carried him to Nevada, where he engaged as a miner in the Savage Mine.  At 
this time the mine had only been sunk to a depth of fifty feet, and they were working the 
black sulphurets, worth in gold and silver from $3,000 to $7,000 per ton.  After about two 
years here he went to Austin, Nevada, prospecting and working in the mines at that place.  

Feeling the need of a settled purpose and direction in life he returned to Virginia City 
and entered upon the study of medicine with Dr. Green of that place for one year, when he 
was enabled, with the aid of his previous experience in his father’s office, to perform all 
office surgery and minor operations.  He continued his studies in the office of a brother of 
a major general of the Confederate army, who was killed in Missouri during the last year of 
the war.  This gentleman had been a surgeon in the British army in India for twenty-five 
years, having had a long and varied experience in most surgical operations.  

He remained in that office for about one year, acquiring a vast experience in surgery, so 
many men being injured in the mines in 1868.  He finished his studies with Dr. McMeans, of 
White Pine, Eastern Nevada, who had long practiced medicine in Santa Rosa, California, and 
entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York city, where, after a three year’s 
course, he graduated and received his diploma, in 1872.  Returning to the Pacific slope, he 
commenced the practice of his profession at Virginia City, where his previous acquaintance 
and experience, coupled with a remarkable successful surgical case that occurred soon after, 
brought him a large and lucrative practice, which continued and increased during the fourteen 
years of his residence there.  He then removed to Los Angeles, in this State, for one year, 
and afterward to Napa where he has practiced for the last five years.  

His parents were Dr. William P. and Eliza (Wein) Conn, who were among the early settlers of 
Ohio.  They are now residents of Napa, his father at the age of eighty-six years, and his 
mother at the age of eighty-four, being still in the enjoyment of active and robust health.  
His brother, Dr. Frank M. Conn, has been a practicing physician in Virginia City for many 
years.  The subject of this sketch is a member of the Napa County Medical Association, and 
of the Masonic order, Yount Lodge, No. 12, of Napa.  An enthusiastic devotee of his 
profession, he loves it for what it is able to do for the good of suffering humanity.  To 
this profession he has devoted his life, and to this wonderful singleness of  purpose his 
great success in it is due.

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