My Genealogy Hound

CHARLES S. CURTICE, of Portland, who is one of the largest propagators of grape-vines in the United States, is a son of Roswell B. and Hannah M. (Chase) Curtice, and was born at Webster, Monroe county, New York, January 21, 1857. The Curtice family is of English extraction, and Jesse Curtice, the grandfather of Charles S. Curtice, came from Antrim, N. H., to Webster, Monroe county, N. Y., where he was engaged in farming until his death, in 1863, at sixty-six years of age. One of his sons was Roswell B. Curtice (father), who was born in 1833. He came about 1870 to Jamestown, where he owns a small farm within the limits of that city and is engaged in raising small fruits. He is a republican in politics, a member of the First Baptist church of Jamestown, and has been master workman for several terms of the lodge of Ancient Order of United Workmen, of which he is a member. He married Hannah M. Chase, a native of Wisconsin, and a member of the Baptist church, who passed away in 1873, aged forty-one years.

Charles S. Curtice came with his parents, in 1870, to Jamestown, where he attended the Union school and collegiate institute of that place. Leaving school he entered the employ of E. A. Ross & Co., of Ross Mills, with whom he remained for four years and then engaged as a traveling salesman with George A. Stone, nurseryman of Rochester, New York. He traveled for Mr. Stone throughout this State until 1880, when he engaged in the nursery business on a small scale for himself in the town of Portland. He increased his business from year to year until it is now of large proportions. He makes a specialty of propagating grape-vines for the wholesale trade, and has developed this branch of the nursery business until he is now one of the largest grape-vine propagators in the United States. In addition to supplying home demands he supplies large orders from every section of the Union. Mr. Curtice employs an average force of twenty men in his nursery and vineyard in the town of Portland, and is a stockholder in the Rochester and Cayuga Lake Vineyard company, of Seneca county, He owns a nice residence at Portland where he has made his home since 1880. He is an active republican in politics, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a pleasant but thoroughgoing business man. He is a member of Brocton Castle, No. 284, Knights of Pythias, Summit Lodge, No. 219, Free and Accepted Masons, at Westfield; Westfield Chapter, No. 129, High Royal Arch Masons, at Mayville; and Triumph Union, No. 32, Equitable Aid Union, which organization was incorporated at Columbus, Pa., March 23, 1879.

On October 4, 1882, Mr. Curtice married Luna L. Harris, a daughter of W. D. Harris, of the town of Ellicott. Mrs. Curtice was born in 1861 and died July 26, 1889, leaving one child, a son, named William M., who was born February 17, 1885.