Charles E. Mann

CHARLES E. MANN, a veteran printer and newspaper man of Kansas, gained his first experience in a printing shop in Western Texas thirty years ago and is editor and one of the proprietors of the Downs News. He is also a representative of Osborne County in the State Legislature.

Mr. Mann was born at Blue Springs in Gage County, Nebraska, February 9, 1870. It is many generations since nine brothers of the Mann family came from Ireland or Scotland, the Manns being of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and established homes in Virginia prior to the Revolutionary war. The great-grandfather of Charles E. Mann served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was with the colonial armies in the final stand at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered. Still another soldier representative was Mr. Mann's grandfather, John Mann, a native of Virginia. He held the rank of colonel in the War of 1812. He was an early settler in Ohio and followed farming there until his death.

Rev. H. P. Mann, father of Charles E., was born in Virginia July 22, 1831. When between fifteen and sixteen years of age he ran away from home and enlisted with an Ohio regiment for service in the Mexican war. He was in the most important campaign of that war, serving under General Scott from the advance from Vera Cruz direct to the City of Mexico, including the battles of Cherubusco, Chapultepec, and afterwards was in the occupation of the City of Mexico. When the war was over he went west and located in Lancaster County, Nebraska, and later from there enlisted as a soldier in the Union army in the Civil war. The quota of Nebraska being filled he went to Missouri and was accepted in the Fifth Missouri Cavalry. He saw much of the battling and campaigning along the border. After the war he returned to Nebraska and took up a homestead in Gage County. His next move was made in 1877, when he went to Texas and farmed in some of the western counties of that state for nine years. In 1886 he moved to a farm in Norton County, Kansas, and he lived in Kansas the rest of his life. He died in Phillipsburg, January 16, 1912. He was an earnest Christian, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and having much ability as a speaker he devoted this ability to the service of his Master as a local preacher. For forty-seven years he preached the Gospel in the various pioneer communities above noted. He was a republican and almost a lifelong member of the Masonic fraternity. Rev. Mr. Mann married Maria Minard, who was born in Indiana in 1834, and is still living at Phillipsburg, aged eighty-five. There were seven children, Charles E. being the third in age. Grant is pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church at Oberlin, Kansas. Edward A. attained the dignity of a justice of the Territorial Supreme Court of New Mexico and was killed in an automobile accident at Gallup in that territory at the age of forty-eight. Laura died at Gering, Nebraska, May 24, 1917, wife of J. W. Kinnamon, a farmer at Gering. Julia is the wife of William Cummins, a hardware and implement merchant at Prescott, Kansas. Harry is in the monument business at Concordia, Kansas. Anna is still living at home with her mother in Phillipsburg.

Charles E. Mann began his education in the public schools of Blue Springs, Nebraska, and finished an academic training in the Belle Plaine College at Belle Plaine, Texas. When he left school at the age of eighteen he went to work in the printing shop of the Review at Eastland, Texas. He learned the trade there and in 1889 became connected with the Norton Champion in Kansas, being employed by J. W. Conway two years, and later was in the Courier office at Norton. Then came successive experiences as a printer and newspaper man at Oberlin, Phillipsburg and Gering, Nebraska. In 1905 he came to Downs, Kansas, and with W. H. Ransom bought the Downs News from W. B. Gaumer. They have since edited and managed the paper in partnership, and in January, 1916, they also acquired the Downs Times from Paul C. Rankin. The Downs News was established in 1903 by W. B. Gaumer, and the Times' history goes back to the Downs Chief, which was founded in 1885 and merged with the Times in 1891. This is one of the important republican papers of Northern Kansas, and is an official paper of Osborne County and has a large circulation over that and adjoining counties. Mr. Mann and Mr. Rankin built and own the building in which the plant and offices are located.

Owing to his long experience as a newspaper man and the close touch it has brought him with the people and interests of Northern Kansas, Mr. Mann is regarded as an important acquisition to the State Legislature. He was elected in November, 1918, to represent Osborne County. He is a republican, is a past master of Downs Lodge No. 204, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, is a member of Osborne Chapter No. 36, Royal Arch Masons, Downs Camp No. 1323, Modern Woodmen of America, and is a member of the State Editorial Association.

April 24, 1901, at Gering, Nebraska, he married Miss Ethel Lovell, a native of Oswego, New York. They have two children, Janice Rowena, born in 1902, and Charles Richard, born in 1905.

Pages 2280-2281.