Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


CYRUS D. CURTIS, 
 
farmer at Lamanda Park, was born in Dexter, Maine, February 4, 1827, one of 
sixteen children. During his boyhood he worked upon the farm in the summer 
seasons for $8 a month, which was then considered high wages, and in winter he 
attended school. He was a great worker. At the age of seventeen years he went to 
Boston, Massachusetts, and was employed in Faneuil Hall Market ten years. Next, 
for twenty years, he was engaged in the wholesale trade in fresh meats at 
Brighton, in partnership, under the firm name of Curtis & Boynton. Theirs was 
the largest packing house in Massachusetts, doing a business of over $2,000,000 
a year. In the great Boston fire of November, 1872, the firm lost over $250,000, 
which embarrassed them beyond recovery. In 1877 Mr. Curtis came to California, 
landing in Los Angeles with only $32; but as he possessed health and strength, 
and the evidences of an upright and successful business man, he purchased a pair 
of mules on credit, and went to work, on rented land. Prospering, he bought 
fifty-nine acres of land near Sierra Madre Villa, but in 1888 he sold this 
property for $45,000, receiving $10,000 cash in hand; but he afterward had to 
take the land back, and he now occupies it. This year he has sowed 150 acres of 
barley, doing all the work himself. He is a very strong and energetic man. It 
has been said that probably there are not as many as three men in all the county 
as stout and agile as he. He is temperate in all his habits, and a teetotaler 
with regard to tobacco and intoxicating liquors. His appearance indicates that 
he may live to be a centenarian, enjoying health even at the age of 100 years. 
He is now sixty-two. Mrs. Curtis, nee Maria C. Shepherd, a native of New 
Hampshire, is a very amiable and hospitable lady and an excellent housekeeper. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Curtis are social, warm-hearted New England people. They have 
one child, a daughter.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 439
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler