Frank E. Curtis
History of Montana,by Joaquin Miller, 1894
USGENWEB Montana Archives
May be copied for non-profit purposes.

Frank E. Curtis, of Butte City, Montana, was born at De Ruyter 
New York, January 2, 1833. His parents moved 
to Fayetteville when he was yet a babe, where he lived until 
manhood, receiving his education at the public 
schools and academy. He then served an apprenticeship with 
David Graham and learned the trade of carriage 
making. In 1855 he started for the west, stopping first at 
Kalamazoo, Michigan and from there went to Chicago 
where he worked at his trade for a dollar a day, thence to 
St. Paul, Minnesota where he worked on a contract 
at making cutters and light sleighs until he had saved $200. 
When the firm failed and he lost all his wages, 
he started with a party for Pembina on the Red River of the 
North, where he remained for two years and then 
returned to St. Paul. In the spring of 1862, Mr. Curtis 
started with a party overland from St. Paul to the 
Salmon River, Idaho, their train consisting of ox teams, 
with seventy-two men and a boy. They hired Indians 
to guide them across the country by Devil's Lake and through 
what is now northern Montana to Warm Springs in 
Deer Lodge Valley, where their party disbanded, some going 
one way and some another. This was the train that 
preceded the Fisk train about one month, the latter following 
their trail most of the way accompanied by U.S. 
soldiers and they claimed to be the first to cross by the 
northern route.

Mr. Curtis and a small party went to Grasshopper Creek, 
(then eastern Idaho) now Bannack City, the first gold 
camp in Montana, where they arrived in October. He has resided 
continuously in Montana since 1862. In 1866 he 
engaged in the stock business on Beaverhead, in which he is 
still engaged on the Bear Paw range in northern 
Montana. In the fall of 1870 he removed to Jefferson Valley 
in Madison County where he still has a hay ranch. 
In 1883 Mr. Curtis removed to Butte and has since resided 
there, engaged in the grocery business under the 
firm name of Tebo & Curtis, at 356 East Park Street.

Frank Curtis was married to Emma Whitcomb (better known as 
Emma Zoller, that being the name of her adopted 
parents) at Bannack City October 8, 1864 by Rev. George G. 
Smith, the first ordained Presbyterian minister 
in Montana. Nine children were the issue of this marriage- 
four of whom are still living. Leonard W., aged 
twenty five, Orlena N, twenty one, Fay H, nineteen years, and 
Bertie May, fifteen years.

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