Source: The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. III pg.214-5 1923
Author: The History of Florida: Past & Present
CURTIS, CHARLES SIBLEY. The incumbent of the
office of tax collector of Gadsden County since 1913, CHARLES SIBLEY
CURTIS has discharged his duties in a manner that has won the entire
approval of his fellow-citizens and has left no doubt as to his genuine
worth and ability. Mr. CURTIS is a native of this locality,
having been born at his present town of residence, Quincy, March 9,
1867, a son of HENRY CURTIS.
HENRY CURTIS was born in Hanover County, Virginia,
and was given good educational advantages, attending the schools of
Richmond, Piedmont Institute and Roanoke College. When he was but
eighteen years of age, in August, 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate
service, becoming a private in the Richmond Grays, Twelfth Virginia
Infantry. At the battle of Drury’s Bluff he was
acting first lieutenant of Wickliffe’s Company, supporting
Garnett’s Battery. At Seven Pines he was seriously injured
and again in the Seven Days battles, and because of disability was
assigned to bureau duty under Gen, GUSTAVUS W. SMITH, commanding, at
Richmond, until July, 1864, when he came to Florida with the intention
of raising a company. However, when he reported to Gen. WILLIAM
MILLER at Tallahassee, he was attached to General Miller’s staff
and remained thereon two months. Subsequently, under Col. J.J.
DANIELS, of Madison, he had charge of the enrolling service of Gadsden,
Liberty and Franklin counties until the close of the war. He was
present at the battle of Natural Bridge, March 6, 1865, which kept
Tallahassee the only state capital not invaded by Federal troops.
Following the war Mr. CURTIS engaged in a general merchandise business
at Quincy for sixteen years, and also followed planting in Gadsden
County. He also engaged in railroad work, being for several years
immigration agent of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. He was one
of the Florida Commission at the Omaha Fair in 1898, contributed much
to the success of the Florida exhibit at the Nashville Fair, and in
many ways was an enthusiastic worker for the advancement of
Florida. He was auditor of the Seaboard Air Line for a number of
years, and at the time of his death, which occurred at Quincy in 1914,
he was state auditor. While securing his education in
the public schools, CHARLES SIBLEY CURTIS clerked in a drug store at
the age of fifteen years, and for a number of years thereafter filled
clerical
positions, being with one concern at Quincy for eight years. He
then entered the auditor’s office of the Florida Central &
Peninsula Railroad, now the Seaboard Air Line at Jacksonville, Florida,
but one year later resigned to become a traveling salesman for
Church’s “Arm and Hammer” brand of baking soda,
covering the territory of Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee with
headquarters at Memphis,Tennessee.
Mr. CURTIS left the road in 1897, when he married Mrs. SARAH DAVIDSON
CRAWFORD, the widow of THOMAS T. CRAWFORD, and a daughter of the late
Col. ROBERT HAMILTON McWHORTA and LEILA A. (CALLIS) DAVIDSON, a review
of whose lives will be found in the sketch of JAMES L. DAVIDSON
elsewhere in this work. Following his marriage, Mr. CURTIS spent
two years at Quincy as a clerk in mercantile establishments, and then
went to Savannah, Georgia, where he spent one year selling shoes for a
concern. Later he spent two years in a like capacity for a St.
Louis, Missouri, concern. Returning to Quincy in 1902, he entered
the employ of Love & Hearin, and remained with them until 1912,
when he was appointed tax collector of Gadsden County to fill the
unexpired term of R. M. MORGAN. He was elected to the office in
the November, 1912, election, and has been the recipient of reelection
ever since. His official record is an excellent one, warranting
the high regard and esteem in which he is held. Mr. CURTIS is a
Mason and an Elk, and his religious connection is with the Presbyterian
Church, in which he is an elder. His diversion is poultry
raising. Mrs. CURTIS is prominent in social, club and church work
at Quincy. By a former marriage she had one daughter, MARY BUENA,
now the wife of VINCENT C. BREWER, of Hockanum, Connecticut, who has
five children, VINCENT C., Jr., SARAH B., CHARLES C., SELDON and
ANNETTE. Mr. and Mrs. CURTIS also have a daughter, SARAH ELISE,
honor graduate of Gadsden High School, who is now specializing in home
economics and chemistry at Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts.