CURRY
CURTIX
1^^
J A^M/Un^L/r ru.
granddaughter of one of the founders of Winns-
boro, S.C, who were gallant soldiers in the war
of the Revolution. His ancestry was of mingled
Scotch, English, Welsh and French. In 1837 his
father removed his family to Talladega county,
Ala. Jabez was graduated from the University
of Georgia in 1843,
and from Harvard
law school in 1845.
In 1846 he volun-
teered in the Mexican
war and having been
disabled by illness he
returned to Alabama
in the following vear.
He was a representa-
tive in the state legis-
lature, 1847^8, 1852-
53, and 1855-56. In
1856 he was a presi-
dential elector on the
Buchanan ticket. He
was a representative
in the 35th and 36th
congresses, 1857-61, and a representative in the
provisional and in the 1st Confederate congresses.
In 1864 he entered the Confederate army as aid
on the staff of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, and
afterward, until the surrender, was lieutenant-
colonel of cavalry, serving in the commands of
Generals Wheeler and Forrest. In 1865 he en-
tered the Baptist ministry, declining, however,
to become pastor of any church. He was presi-
dent of Howard college, Alabama, 1866-68, and
in 1868 his connection began with Richmond col-
lege, where, at different times, he was professor
of English, philosophy, and constitutional and
international law, and president of the. board of
trustees, 1868-81. In February, 1881, ^he suc-
ceeded Dr. Barnas Sears as general agent of the
Peabody education fund. In 1885 he was ap-
pointed by President Cleveland U.S. minister to
Spain, where he negotiated a modus vivendi in
reference to Cuban commerce, secured the
acknowledgment of a heavy claim which had
been jiending for years, was engaged in the pre-
liminary international steps for the quadri-cen-
tennial celebration of the discovery of America,
and was actively instrumental, by procuring
transcripts of documents from the archives, in
aiding the historical and literary labors of his
countrymen, Henry C. Lea, John Mason Brown,
Alexander Brown, Francis Wharton and John
Gilmary Shea. Resigning his diplomatic post in
1888, he resumed his duties as general agent of
the Peabody education fund, and was made an
honorary trustee of the board. In May, 1891, he
was elected a member of the board of trustees of
the John F. Slater fund, and was made chairman
of the educational committee and general man-
ager of the fund. His annual reports of the
Peabody and John F. Slater funds and his various
addresses before institutions, associations, col-
leges and legislatures, were published and con-
tain a full record of educational progress at tlie
south, and an able discussion of educational
questions during the period of his official service.
He served as moderator and as president of
various Baptist conventions and associations.
He received the degree of A.M. from the Univer-
sity of Georgia in 1843; that of D.D. from the
University of Rochester in 1872: and that of
LL. D. from Mercer university in 1867, and from
the University of Georgia in 1886. He published
Establishment and Disestablishment, or Progress of
Sold Liberty in America ; Constitutional Government
in Spain (1889) ; William Ewart Gladstone, a Study
(1891); The Southern States of the American Union
Considered in Their Ilelations to the Constitution of
the United States and to the Resulting Union (1894);
and the History of the Pecibody Education Fund
(1897). He died in .\sheville, N.C., Feb. 12, 1903.
CURTIN, Andrew Gregg, governor of Penn-
sylvania, was born in Bellefonte, Pa., April 22,
1815; son of Roland Curtin, who came from Ire-
land in 1793 and in 1807 .started an iron foundry
near Bellefonte. " His mother was a daughter of
Andrew Gregg, representative and senator in
congress from Pennsylvania. He was educated
at Milton academj', studied law at Dickinson
college, graduating in 1837, and was admitted to
the bar in 1839. In 1840 he supported G-^-neral
Harrison for the presidency and in 1844 canvassed
the state for Henry Clay. He was on the Whig
electoral ticket of 1848 and 1852. In 1852, as
chairman of the state central committee, he con-
ducted the gubernatorial canvass for James
Pollock, and upon his inauguration as governor
Mr. Curtin was appointed secretary of the com-
monwealth. He officially encouraged the county
superintendency of schools, then first inaugu-
rated, and his report to the legislature led to the
establishment of the normal schools. He was
elected governor of Pennsylvania in October. 1860,
by a majority of 32,000, after a spirited canvass
that was looked uixjn throughout the country as
an index to the presidential election to be held the
next month. Governor Curtin called an extra
session of the legislature to meet in April, 1861,
to provide for the public defence, and when Pres-
ident Lincoln called for volunteers, Pennsyl-
vania, whose quota was 14,000 men, organized
nearly 30,000 and had five companies in the field
April 18, 1861, the first volunteer troops from
any state to reach the national capitol. The
celebrated Pennsylvania reserves were at this
time regularly mustered and drilled by the state
under direction of the governor, and his fore-
