♂David Curtis

David Curtis (born 1682) was the youngest son of Joseph Curtis of Wethersfield in the Connecticut Colony^W, who lost his father before he was two and shared in the division of the family land at sixteen. He was the sixth great-grand-uncle of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the brother of Thomas Curtis (1680–1752), Roger’s sixth great-grandfather.

Childhood and his share of the land

The Barbour transcription of the Wethersfield town records gives David’s birth as 29 November 1682, to Joseph Curtis (1644–1683) and his wife Mercy, whom later compilations give as Mercy Deming (1651–1714). His father died on 31 December 1683, and the inventory of the estate listed David, aged one, as the youngest of five children. The land was not divided for fifteen years. On 27 April 1699 John Curtis, John Deming senior and Ebenezer Deming senior, appointed by the court, gave “David Curtis the third son” one acre in the great meadow and a little over two acres in the dry swamp, next to his brother Thomas’s share, and a portion of the debts owed to the estate equal to Thomas’s, £3 18s. 5d.

Marriage and family

The Barbour transcription records that David married Abigail Goodrich, daughter of John Goodrich, on 25 April 1706 at Wethersfield, the Rev. Mr. Mix officiating.

The Barbour transcription gives the couple two children, Allen, born 18 May 1708, and Anne, born 18 July 1710; Goodwin’s genealogy writes the daughter’s name Anna. The family tree gives no death date for David.

Notes

The 1938 history of the Curtis family gives the marriage as 5 April 1706; the Barbour transcription, Stiles’s genealogy and Goodwin’s all give 25 April. The Barbour entry for David’s birth names his mother “Mary”, with “Mercy” given beside it. Mercy’s parentage as a Deming rests on later compilations, as the page on Mercy Deming explains. The identification of Mary Goodrich’s husband as David’s brother is argued on the page on Thomas Curtis, where a second Thomas Curtis of Wethersfield, a son of John, is set apart from him.