Here are a few facts about Charley and family. I'm not citing sources here. Future posts will address these items in greater detail and source citations will be provided then or they have already been dealt with in past posts/pages. Here we go!
1. C. E. Conrad, Jr. (Edward) was not a drunk, despite assertions to the contrary. He did maintain a decent liquor cabinet in his home in Montreal, but that was expected of any gentleman of the period in order to properly entertain guests.
2. Edward did not commit suicide. The circumstances surrounding his death are rather suspicious, and at some future time I will delve into them in some depth, but note that a life insurance policy claim was paid off without any problems and he received a full Catholic funeral in the main cathedral in Montreal and was buried in the Catholic cemetery there as well. This was during a period when the Catholic Church would not conduct funeral services for persons who killed themselves, and they could not be buried in a Catholic cemetery which prohibition was not lifted until the 1980s.
3. Charley Conrad had nothing to do with bringing the Stanfords to Ft. Benton. That was entirely the doing of Lettie's brother, James. In fact, at that time Charley and James Stanford were not known to each other despite the latter's having served at Ft. Macleod while Charley was running the Baker operation there. Their paths there never crossed. They did not become acquainted until Charley began courting Lettie. James benefitted from that courtship and later marriage as he was now C. E. Conrad's brother-in-law and was soon working for the Conrads and became rather wealthy as a result.
4. Charley and J. J. Hill were business associates only. Charley referred to Hill as "Mr. Hill," and Hill referred to Charley as "Conrad." Charley was often summoned to St. Paul to confer with Mr. Hill who visited Kalispell rarely and always stayed in his private Pullman car and not in the Conrad mansion when he did.
5. Charlie loved to help people out whenever he could, but he was always mindful of the pride of these fiercely independent frontier folk with whom he dealt. A small rancher might be struggling to make a go of it and Charley would offer to lend a hand by loaning them some capital (an outright gift would have been an insult), but he would make it an "on demand" note and simply not call it in, knowing that in time, that loan would be made good, and if not, well he would just write it off. These loans were always made with his personal funds.
6. Having ridden with Mosby's Rangers, he had learned how to accurately shoot pistols from horseback while riding. Pistols were preferred to rifles or carbines as being much easier to handle from the hurricane deck of a cavalry mount. He was known as a crack shot, but never made anything of it. One 4th of July, Kalispell was having a target shooting contest and several of the old-timers prevailed upon Charlie to enter. He reluctantly did so and easily won to the delight of his compatriots.
7. Charlie's Civil War experiences inculcated in him a permanent abhorrence of war. He never spoke of his time with Mosby's command and never attended any of the Mosby reunions. He also used his influence to keep his son Charles Davenport Conrad out of the Spanish-American War, as he was absolutely terrified of the possibility of the boy's involvement.
That's it for this time. There is much yet to come, but it will take some time to put it together, so be patient and keep your eyeballs peeled for future posts and pages.
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