Curtis, Gold Tompkins, 1821-1862.

Gold T. Curtis was born in Morrisville, New York on August 16, 1821, the son of John G. and Ruth (Bartlett) Curtis. He graduated from Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.) in 1839, and practiced law in various places in New York State before coming to Stillwater (Minn.) in 1853. Curtis held the offices of district attorney and probate judge, and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1857. Besides managing a lucrative law practice, he was also a collecting agent for the firm of Bun & Boyd, Chicago. Curtis enlisted in Company K, Fifth Minnesota Regiment, in January 1862; was mustered in as captain in April 1862; and died of dysentery in St. Louis on July 24, 1862.

Gold T. Curtis married Mary F. Gay of Canastota, Madison County, New York in 1846. She died less than two years later on July 17, 1848 at the age of 20. The following year, in 1849, Curtis married Mary Abigail Anderson of Belleville, New York. Two children were born: Jennie O. (ca. 1851), who married a New York banker, Henry W. Cannon, and had two sons, George Curtis and Henry White Cannon; and Gold T. Curtis, Jr. (ca. 1857). Gold T. Curtis, Jr. was employed at the Chase National Bank, New York, before moving to Great Falls, Montana in 1889. While in Montana he organized banks and became president of the First National Bank of Great Falls in 1897. He married Lucille M. Monroe in 1889, and had a son born ca. 1901 who was also named Gold T. Curtis.

More biographical information will be found in: U.S. Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men (1879), p. 496; Minnesota in the Civil War and Indian War, p. 298; James Taylor Dunn, The St. Croix: Midwest Border River (1965), p. 226-232, all available in the Minnesota Historical Society book collection.

Henry M. Curtis, brother of Gold T., arrived in Stillwater on June 6, 1854 was later mustered into Company F, Third Minnesota Regiment (age 26), and was mustered out on September 2, 1865.

John P. Houston, law partner of Gold Curtis, was, according to correspondence, working in Trempeleau, Wisconsin as a school teacher. When the Civil war broke out he returned to Minnesota, enlisted in Company F, Fifth Minnesota Regiment (age 27), and was mustered out in September 1865. (SEE: Minnesota in the Civil War and Indian War, I, p. 298; James Taylor Dunn, The St. Croix: Midwest Border River (1965), p. 230.

From the guide to the Gold T. Curtis and family papers, 1842-1901., (Minnesota Historical Society)