“The History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin”, published: Chicago:  
Western Historical Company.   1879.


DAVID W. CURTIS,  Fort Atkinson; was born in the town of Chelsea, 
Orange Co., Vt., Nov. 14, 1833, being the second son and third child of 
Azro Burton Curtis and Anna Whitney, his wife.  His grandfather's name 
on his father's side, was Elias Curtis, who married Abigail Clement, and 
his great-grandfather's name was also Elias, who first settled in 
Royalton, Vt., before the Revolutionary war, and afterward in 
Tunbridge, Vt., and was one of the foremost men of his town and county 
during his day - a man of great energy and business capacity.  He 
married Sarah Hutchinson, the heroine of the burning of Royalton by the 
French and Indians during the Revolutionary war; she lived to be 96 
years old.  His maternal grandfather, for whom he was named, was 
David Whitney, who was a lineal descendant of the Whitney that settled 
at Pepperell, Mass., in 1661, and it might be here stated that the farm on 
which the Whitney that came from England first settled, where David 
Whitney was born, Pepperell, Mass., remained in the Whitney family 
until five or six years ago.  His maternal grandmother's name was 
Susanna Huntington, one of the family that helped to make New 
England famous.  The subject of this sketch removed from Vermont to 
Wisconsin Oct. 8, 1845, with his parents, who settled in the town of 
Jefferson, on Deer Creek, near Curtis' Mill, where they continued to 
reside until the death of A. B. Curtis Jan. 11, 1870.  He helped to hew 
out a good-sized farm from the heavy timber-land, enjoying the 
advantage of three months' attendance upon the district school in the 
winters; so it was with each succeeding year until he arrive at his 
majority; then he apprenticed himself to learn the mason's trade, and the 
winters following for a year or two, he qualified himself to teach writing, 
which occupation he was engaged in in the western part of the State, 
when he joined a party of young men at Prairie du Chien, who were on 
their way to the then Territory of Nebraska, and went with them, 
stopping at Nemaha City, Nemaha Co., about two years, when he 
returned to Wisconsin in the fall of 1859.  He was married, Nov. 16, 
1860, to Miss Jane A. Howard, of Hebron; they have two children - 
Harry H., born Sept. 11, 1866, and Belle, born Aug. 27, 1870.  After his 
marriage, he settled down to farming on the paternal homestead until the 
summer of 1862, when he enlisted as a private soldier; was soon after 
elected First Lieutenant of Co. D, 29th Regiment W.V.I., and served with 
his regiment until near the close of the war, being with his company at 
the battles of Port Gibson, Champion Hill, siege of Vicksburg, Red 
River expedition, etc.  He had command of Co. A, of the regiment, 
nearly one year by detail; he was also an Aid-de-Camp on the staff of 
Brig. Gen. J. R. Slack, of Huntington, Indiana, and took part in the siege 
of Mobile in that capacity.  In May, 1865, he was commissioned Captain 
in the Quartermaster's Department, when he received a furlough, thus 
enabling him to visit his home for the first time since his regiment left 
Wisconsin, arriving in June, and, as the war was then practically closed, 
he never again returned to the army.  About Sept. 1, 1865, he formed a 
business partnership with Oscar S. Cornish, for the carrying-on of trade 
in lumber and produce, which has continued to this time.  The firm 
business has been pushed with great energy, and "Lumber, Lath and 
Shingles, at C. & C.'s, Fort Atkinson," is a legend painted upon fences, 
stones and buildings in all directions by the roadside, for a distance of 
thirty or forty miles from their place of business.  They also manufacture 
the Rectangular Churn and Lever Butter-Worker, which is sent to all 
parts of the United States.  Col. Curtis has had but little to do with 
politics, although he has run for a county office once or twice, but 
without being elected, though always up with his ticket and generally 
ahead.  In the fall of 1876, he received the nomination for the Assembly 
for the Third Assembly District, Jefferson Co., and was elected by 123 
majority.  Gov. William E. Smith appointed him one of his aids with the 
rank of Colonel in January, 1878.  He was elected Secretary of the 
Wisconsin Dairymen's Association in January, 1876, which office he 
holds at this time.  He has been Secretary of the Jefferson Co. 
Agricultural Society four years, and during this time the Society has 
advanced from a mediocre place to the front rank of such institutions, its 
fairs being among the largest and best held in the Northwest by county 
societies, those of 1878 and 1879 being particularly fine as to exhibits, 
and the outside attractions on a scale scarcely  ever attempted by similar 
societies.


Submitted by:  Linda Pingel  (LPingel@worldnet.att.net)