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
