Cornelius T. Dondore

Cornelius T. Dondore was born 18 July 1842 in Pennsylvania to a family of Alsatian extraction that had settled in Berks County during the Colonial era. Little has been discovered about his early life, but popular songs and piano works by C. T. Dondore appeared in advertisements in Buffalo, N.Y. newspapers as early as 1867, and in various midwestern cities over the next few years. Dondore conducted a choral concert in Findlay, Ohio on 21 March 1871. By 1872 he was dealing in pianos and organs from a store at 157 Summit Street in Toledo, Ohio, but by 1879 had moved to Findlay, Ohio where he lived off investments in real estate. Dondore suffered from unspecified ill health, and by 1890 had relocated to San Diego, California where he pursued farming. He died there 27 May 1922.

Sources:
FamilySearch, "The Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 3 March 2025), Cornelius T. Dondore (MRZS-MNN), Details.
Advertisements, Buffalo Daily Republic, 13 August 1867, page 3. Newspapers.com.
Advertisements, The Weekly Gazette (Kansas City), 13 March 1869, page 2. Newspapers.com.
"Grand Concert!", The Hancock Courier (Findlay, OH), 16 March 1871, page 2. Newspapers.com.
"Local business notices", The Tiffin Tribune (Tiffin, OH), 18 January 1872, page 3. Newspapers.com
Advertisement for C. T. Dondore, The Fremont Weekly Journal (Fremont, OH), 8 May 1874, page 1. Newspapers.com.
"Local", The Worthington Advance (Worthington, MN), 17 May 1877, page 3. Newspapers.com
Brennan, J. Fletcher. "Rawson, Bass," A Biographical Cyclopaedia and Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Men (Cincinnati: John C. Yorston, 1879), page 345-346.

--David Russell Hamrick