Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/93

 CURTIS

CURTIS

lature, 1841—44. During Tj-Ier's administration he declined the mission to England, offered him by Secretary of State Daniel Webster. He made a special study of constitutional liistory and law and in 1849-.")0 delivered before the Lowell insti- tute in Boston a course of lectures on that subject. He was appointed United States commissioner in Boston and as such caused much comment by enforcing the fugitive slave law by returning to slavery the negro, Thomas Sims, who had lived in Massachusetts for several years. In 1862 he re- moved to New York city, where he declined sev- ' eral times to be made judge. He is the author of EnrjUsh and American Admiralty Decisions (1839); Decisions of the Courts of Common Law and Ad,mir- <ilty in the United States (1840-46); Bi(jhts and Duties of Merchant Seamen (IdAX) \ American Con- veyances (1846); Laic of Copyright (1847); Laio of Patents (1849-73); Equity Precedents (1850); Li- ventor's Manual; Commentaries on the Jurisprudence, Practice and Jurisdiction of the Courts of the United (Stafes (18.')4-58); History of the Origin, Formation and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States (2 vols., 1855-58); Life of Daniel Webster (ISli)); Life of James Buchanan (1883); McClellan's Last Service to the Bepublie (1887); Creation or Evolution (1887); and Constitutional Histoi~y of the United States; from their Declaration of Independence to the Close of the Civil War (2 vols., edited by Joseph Culbertson Clayton, 1896). He died in New York city, March 28, 1804.

CURTIS, George William, author, was born in Providence. R.I., Feb. 24, 1824; son of George and Mary Elizabeth (Burrill) Curtis; grandson of David and Susanna (Stone) Curtis; great- grandson of John and Rebekah (Waites) Curtis; great^ grandson of Ephraim Curtis, .and great^ grandson of Henry and Mary, (Guy) Curtis, who emigrated from England in 1635. His maternal grand- father, James Burrill, was chief justice of Rhode Island and a United States sen- ator. In 1826 his mother died, and in 1830 he was placed in the school of C. W. Greene, at Jamaica

^ Plain, Boston, Mass.,

^U4^. and remained there until his father's marriage in 1835 to a daughter of Samuel W. Bridgham of Providence. R.I., when he re- turned to his native city and attended school until 1839. In that year he went to New York city, where his education was continued under

private tutors. For a sliort time he was em- ployed in a counting-room, but the work proved uncongenial and he left to join his brother, J. Burrill Curtis, who had fallen under the influ- ence of the transcendentalists, then formed into the Brook Farm communitj- at West Roxbury, Mass. The brothers spent the years 1842-43 as boarders at Brook Farm, then a winter in the New York home, and in the spring of 1844 went to Concord, Mass., where they joined a study club composed of Alcott. Emerson, Hawthorne, Ellery Channing, Henrj^ Thoreau, George Brad- ford and themselves. In August, 1846, George sailed from New York for Marseilles, remaining abroad four years. The first winter was passed in Rome, the second in Berlin, the third in Paris, and the fourth on the Nile and in Palestine. Meanwhile he contributed frequent foreign let- ters to the Courier and Enquirer, and to the Tribune. On his return to the United States in 1850 he began his literaiy work in earnest, and in the spring of 1851 his first book " Nile Notes of a Howadji " appeared. Of this book the author said, " The Nile Notes I cannot hesitate to call successful, but not a great hit."' That it was well received is shown by the fact that within six months 2500 copies had been sold. The "Howadji in Syria" soon followed, and met with a still more cordial reception. Before the issue of his "Nile Notes," however, Curtis entered the lecture field, and also went on the Tribune as " general utility man," working steadily until the summer of 1851 when he had a long respite among the various watering places of the country. His journeyings were reported quite regularly in letters to the Tribune and afterward collected into a third Howadji volume entitled "Lotus Eating." For the next few years Mr. Curtis lectured, wrote for the maga- zines, especially Harper's, assisted in editing Putnam's Monthly Magazine, 1853-57, and brought out " The Potiphar Papers " and " Prue and I." In 1854 he took charge of the "editor's easy chair " in Harper's Monthly, and continued his essays in that department during the rest of his life. In the spring of 1856 he invested all his money in the publishing firm of Dix, Edwards & Co., to whom Putnam's Monthly Magazine had been sold. In November of that year he was married to Anna, daughter of Francis G. Shaw of Staten Island, N. Y., and made his home with his father-in-law. The publishing firm failed in April, 1857, and Mr. Curtis assumed the respon- sibility of the indebtedness for which he was not legally bound, and which lie did not completely liquidate until 1873. His first active work in the field of politics was during the Fremont cam- paign of 1856 when he made a tour through Pennsylvania previous to the state election, and