Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/90

 CURTIX

CURTIN

■thought in liokling 1.1,000 extra vohinteers at Harrisburg was ai)preciated by the government and the men were soon put in the field. The Pennsylvania reserves were known by the whole army and made a record for bravery as they did for patriotism. This vigorous ix)licy of the governor was kept up throughout the war and 270 regiments besides detached companies, an army of 387,284 men, were credited to the single state of Pennsylvania. Official agents of the state were sent to the field to look after the sick and wounded and through the efforts of the governor no body of a soldier known to have belonged to Pennsylvania was buried outside the state. A system for the care and education of the orphans and the children of the wounded, was organized, the state becoming their guardian and support- ing them until they could support themselves. At the end to his second term, Governor Curtin retired from public life, declining a second time the proffer of a first-class foreign mission. In 18G9 President Grant appointed him U.S. minister to Russia and in the Republican na- tional conventions of 1868 and 1872 he was promi- nently before both conventions as a suitable candidate for the vice-presidency. Upon his return from Russia in 1872 he supported Horace Greeley for the presidency and remained in the Democratic party. He served as a representa- tive in the 47th, 4'8th and 49th congresses, 1881-87. He was married to Katharine, daughter of Dr. William J. Wilson of Centre county. Pa. He died at Bellefonte Pa., Oct 7, 1894.

CURTIN, Jeremiah, philologist and author, was Ixjrn in Milwaukee, Wis., Sept. 6, 1838; .son of David and Ellen (Furlong) Curtin, and grand- son of Jeremiah Curtin He was graduated from Harvard in 1863, where he had shown rare facility as a linguist. He under- stood all the modern European languages, was thorough in his knowledge of Latin and Greek, and soon '''.'i, made good progress ,/ in HeVjrew, Sanskrit /'/ // S ^^^ Persian. Having / a slight knowledge of

^ I Russian, he took ad-

-^ CPuV^i«cA vantage of the visit of Admiral Lis.sof- sky's fleet to America in 1864 to become ac- quainted with the atlmiral and officers, and soon sjKjke with them in their native tongue. In October, 1864. at the instance of James Ru.ssell Lowell, George William Curtis and Senator Fos- ter of Connecticut Secretary Seward appointed

him .secretary of the U.S. legation at St. Peters- burg, anil he remained in that position until 1869, taking advantage of his opiwrtunitj- to study Polish and .some other Slav languages, as well as the languages of Central Asia. He went to Prague in 1869, to be present at the 500th anni- versary of the birth of John Huss, and he de- livered in Bohemian the oration of the day. During his tour he ma.stered the languages of the southern Slavs, thus completing the linguistic Slav circle. In 1877, after one year in London, spent mainlj^ at the British mu.seum, during wliich time he read the Hebrew Old Testament through twice and the Koran once in Arabic, he returned to America and devoted himself to the study of the languages of the American Indians. From 1883 he was connected with the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian institution, as assi.stant ethnologist, Major Powell, director of the bureau, being ethnologist, till 1891 actively, and from 1891 actively only as occasion required. Between 1883 and 1891 he collected the vocabularies of sixteen Indian languages, of which eight were on the Pacific coast, and spent much time in in- vestigation in California and Central America. He is the author of Myths and Folklore of Ireland (1890); Myths and Folk Tales of the liitssians, West- ern Slavs and Magyars (1890); Myths and Hero Tales of Ireland (1894); Fairy Tales of Ireland. He translated from the Polish the following books by Sienkiewicz: With Fire and Sicord (1890); The Delurje (2 vols., 1891); Fan Michael (1893); Children of the Soil (1895); Quo Vadis (1896); Hania (1897); Sielanka, a Forest Picture, and Other Stories (1898); The Knights of the Cross (1898); and from the Russian: Tales of Three Centuries, by Michael Zagoskin (1891); Prince Serebryani, by Alexis Tolstoi (1892); Creation Myths of Primitive Amer- ica in Pelation to the Beligious History and Mental Development of Mankind (1899). In 1899 he had several works well under way, including Russia and Poland in Tfieir Historical Relations to America, Great Britain and Russia; and a number of vol- umes on American mythology and linguistics.

CURTIN, Roland Gideon, physician, was born in Bellefonte, Pu., Oct. 29, 1839; son of Dr. Coii- stans and Mary Anne (Kinne) Curtin. His father was graduated from Surgeons' hall, Dublin, Ire- land; immigrated to America in 1807; settled in Bellefonte in 1809, and practised as a physician and surgeon until his death in April, 1842. His mother was a lineal descendant from Gen. Thomas Welles of Connecticut, and granddaugh- ter of Aaron Kinne, chaplain of Fort Griswold. when the British under Arnold massacred Colonel Ledyard and his command, Sept. 6, 1781. Roland was graduated from the .scientific department of Williston seminary, Easthampton, Mass., in 1859, was U.S. naval storekeeper in the Philadelphia