CURTIS  

CURTIS 

          Our Curtis family research only extends back two generations before our "Eliza", my grandfather's mother.

       John Curtis (c. 1769-bef. 1860) married Nancy Robbins (c. 1773-bef. 1860) in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their children were John, William R. (Robbins?), Nancy, Sarah, and Rebecca. The parents John and Nancy must have moved to Tennessee before 1819, because in that year he was one of the signers of the petition to the Tennessee legislature to establish Wayne County. Both John and his son William R. were early filers for land in this new county. In their later years, John and Nancy made their home with his son William in Wayne County. Their names are listed in William's household in the 1850 census, but died before 1860 as their names do not appear in the next census. Their graves have not been located.

     William Curtis (c. 1769-1865) married, in Williamson County, Tennessee, Nancy Skaggs(1800-1865). In the 1820s, William was granted 412 acres of land in Wayne County by the State of Tennessee. Settling there, he is recorded as being on the first county court. For the next 40 years, he was a Justice of the Peace and a land trader. Nancy Skaggs was born in Kentucky in 1800 and died in Wayne County, Tennessee in 1865, the same year as her husband. Her family has not been definitely established, but it is most likely that her grandfather was Charles Skaggs. He and his brothers, along with their companions, including Daniel Boone, were "Long Hunters" and the first English settlers in Kentucky. In the last years of their lives, the Civil War dramatically effected this Curtis family as four sons fought for either the CSA or the USA - sometimes both. The children were Thomas, Polly, Amos, Wade, William, John, Sarah, Louisa Elizabeth (Eliza), Alcie, Eleanor and Delilah.

     Louisa Elizabeth, "Eliza" Curtis (1836-?) married, in 1852, Isaiah Blackwood.She is remembered for two incidents in her life: her telling Confederate recruiters that her prematurely white-haired husband, seen from a distance, was too old to fight; and the time she was so delighted to hear her grandson, James Blackwood, preaching, that she stood suddenly to praise him, dropping to the floor another an infant descendent whom she had forgotten was in her lap.

The following information about Eliza's siblings is taken from " The Curtis Family of Wayne Co., TN by Fred Denker"

In 1850, John and Nancy were living with William and Nancy in Wayne County, Tennessee. Thomas, Amos, and Polly were married and living on separate tracts in Wayne Co. Thomas, Amos, John, Louisa, and Polly left Wayne County, Tennessee and ended up in Newton County, Arkansas where they settled within ten miles of each other in the southwest corner of the county. For those who haven't been to Newton County, Arkansas, it is very similar to Wayne County, Tennessee except it is much hillier and precipitous. However, anyone from one county would be very much at home in the other. Wade H. CURTIS was a Sargent in the US Army during the Civil War and died of illness during the war. Amos CURTIS , served a one year enlistment in the Confederate Army, mustering out in 1862. In 1863, he enlisted in the Union Army and spent the rest of the war as a corporal. He and later his children, received a pension on his service. Thomas enlisted in the Confederate Cavalry only to desert a month later. He was a Justice of the Peace and Postmaster after the war. John D. CURTIS served in the Confederate Infantry. Alice (Alcy) CURTIS married William S. MOORE who was very unlucky. There are several versions of what happened, but the result was that William S. MOORE was executed. I have the text of a letter he wrote to Alcy the night before he was to die. It is a very emotional letter. One version has it that he had gone AWOL to see her and to check on his farm, a very common occurrence in the Civil War. A relative turned him in, and an example was made of his case. Anyway, the result was tragic. Alice (Alcy) CURTIS, Eliza's sister, married William S. MOORE who was very unlucky. There are several versions of what happened, but the result was that William S. MOORE was executed. I have the text of a letter he wrote to Alcy the night before he was to die. It is a very emotional letter. One version has it that he had gone AWOL to see her and to check on his farm, a very common occurrence in the Civil War. A relative turned him in, and an example was made of his case.