LICKING COUNTY OHIO
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Transcribed by Deb.


"Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol 2" by Henry Howe. (pub 1888)

Licking County
Page 89

     Samuel Ryan Curtis was born near Champlain, New York, February 3, 1807, and 
died in Council Bluffs, Iowa, December 25, 1866.  His parents removed to Ohio 
the year of his birth; graduated from West Point, in 1831; resigned from the 
army the succeeding year, and studied and practiced law in Newark.  From 1837 to 
1840 he was chief-engineer of the Muskingum river improvements.  In 1846 he was 
made Adjutant-General of Ohio, for the special purpose of organizing the State's 
quota of volunteers for the Mexican war.  He served in that war as Colonel of 
the 2d Ohio, acting as Military Governor of Camargo, a large military depot, 
which he held February 18, 1847, against a large force of Mexicans, under 
General Urrea.  In 1855 he commenced the practice of law in Keokuk, Iowa, and 
was three times elected to Congress; resigning in 1861, he became a 
major-general.  He was a member of the Peace Commission in 1861.  From 
September, 1862, till May, 1863, he was at the head of the Department of 
Missouri, and that of Kansas, from January, 1864, till February, 1865.  He aided 
in the pursuit and defeat of General Price's army in 1864.  From February to 
July, 1865, he commanded the Department of the Northwest.
     His elder brother, Henry B. Curtis, who died in Chicago, November 5, 1885, 
was an eminent lawyer of Mount Vernon, active in public works, and an authority 
on banking and monetary affairs.  He was instrumental in the selection of the 
site and founding of Kenyon College in Knox county.