♂Zebulon Curtis

Zebulon Curtis (16 January 1710/11 – 5 May 1798) was a Connecticut farmer and mill owner who moved from Farmington to Torrington in the early 1740s, was named captain of the town’s trainband^W in 1759, and died there in his late eighties, leaving shares in saw and grist mills in two towns and a hundred acres of land in Vermont. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son John Curtis (1748–1790).

Early life

Zebulon Curtis was born on 16 January 1710/11 at Farmington, in Hartford County, Connecticut Colony, the son of Thomas Curtis (1680–1752) and Mary Goodrich (born 1682). The Farmington town records enter him as “Zebulon, s. Thomas”, and the Wethersfield church baptized him on 6 May 1711, nearly four months after his birth; its entry calls him “of Farmington”. His parents had married at Wethersfield in 1703 and were still there in 1705; by the time of his birth the family had moved to Farmington, which is why most of his brothers and sisters are missing from the Wethersfield books.

Marriage and family

He married Lydia Cole (1709–1776) at Farmington on 3 July 1735; the town record describes them as “both of Farmington”. A published Curtis family genealogy names her parents as Nathaniel Cole and Elizabeth Woodford. The couple had six children, born between 1737 and 1751: Elizabeth, Thomas, Marcy, Job, John and Lydia. The eldest, Elizabeth, was presumably born at Farmington; Job, born in 1745, and the children after him were born at Torrington.

In December 1737 he was most likely one of the three rate makers the Kensington society chose for the coming year, the men who assessed its taxes. In May 1739 he and his father Thomas appear to have signed a memorial from the north part of Kensington parish to the General Assembly. A history of Torrington published in 1878 says that Ebenezer North came from Farmington in the spring of 1741 and bought two farms at Torrington in company with Zebulon. On 9 June 1754 Zebulon, his wife Lydia and a Mary Curtis described as his mother were admitted to the Torrington church together.

Lydia died at Torrington on 22 June 1776. Their son Thomas, who had settled at Norfolk, died that August, leaving three sons and two daughters; their daughter Marcy, who married into the Filley family and lived at Winchester, had also died by 1790. Of the others, Elizabeth married Edward Eggleston in 1760, John married Mary Filley in 1769, Lydia married Joseph Holmes in 1778, and Job married Eunice Cowles.

Later life and will

In May 1759 the General Assembly named him captain of the company or trainband in Torrington, and in October 1760 it named him captain of the town’s first company or trainband.

The federal census of 1790 lists “Zebulon Curtiss” at Torrington, next to Jonathan and Benjamin Phelps and two lines above Matthew Grant. At seventy-nine and long widowed, he headed a household of eleven people: two men over sixteen, four boys under sixteen and five females. The records do not say who they were.

He made his will on 30 June 1790, and Jonathan and Benjamin Phelps were two of its three witnesses. To the children of his late son Thomas he left all his interest in the saw mill and grist mill at Norfolk. To his son Job of New Hartford he left his interest in the saw and grist mills there. To his son John, then living at Worthington in Massachusetts, he left a hundred acres at Wells, Vermont, land that John had lately deeded to him. The rest was to be divided among his two surviving daughters, Elizabeth Eggleston and Lydia Holmes, and the children of his daughter Marcy Filley, “late of Winchester deceased”. The sons received double shares, and Marcy’s children together counted as one daughter. He named Job and John as his only executors, but John died at Worthington about ten weeks later.

Death

Zebulon Curtis died at Torrington on 5 May 1798 and was buried the next day. The church register records the burial “in his 88th year”. He was buried on the same day of the calendar as his baptism at Farmington, eighty-seven years earlier. His gravestone in West Torrington Cemetery gives the same date of death. His will was proved in 1798; the family genealogy dates the probate to 4 June.

Notes

The gravestone gives his age as 88 years, but the church register’s “in his 88th year” matches his birth in January 1710/11. A lineage-society record gives his death as 25 May 1798; the gravestone, the church register and the family genealogy all have 5 May.

The family genealogy calls him Captain, and a cemetery listing marks his grave with the word “Flag”, a notation used for soldiers’ graves. The printed Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut record the rank in two acts of the General Assembly. The May 1759 act (volume XI, page 265) states: “This Assembly do establish Mr. Zebulon Curtiss to be Captain of the company or trainband in the town of Torrington.” The October 1760 act, on page 446 of the same volume, names him captain of the first company or trainband in Torrington.

His mother was living at Torrington in 1754, when the church admitted her with him; the 1730 death date came only from a memorial listing.

An 1870 history of Torringford says that Zebulon and his wife moved from Kensington to Torringford in January 1743, but it names his wife Eunice Cole. The town records name her Lydia: the Farmington town book has her marriage to him on 3 July 1735, and the Torrington records give her death on 22 June 1776.

A Zebulon Curtis at New Hartford in the 1800 census was a younger man. He was probably Zebulon, son of Job Curtis, who was baptized at Torrington in 1770.

Kensington records

The December 1737 vote and the May 1739 memorial are printed in Alfred Andrews’s Memorial, Genealogy, and Ecclesiastical History of the First Church, New Britain (1867), introduction, pages 38 and 40. The memorial, dated at Kensington on 9 May 1739, is signed “Zeb. Curtice” and “Thos Curtice”, and the General Assembly voted it down. The text above qualifies both entries, since they come from a printed church history of 1867, a secondary source.