The mercantile interests of Collin county were for many years ably served by the gentleman whose name initiates this brief sketch, and his commercial connections with that county, like his connection with the grazing industry of Clay county, were of a high order and placed him among the eminently representative citizen of his county. Since the early spring of 1890 his lot has been cast with the community of Joy, in Clay county, where his presence is effectively revealed by his works and where substantial contributions to the county’s development have been made.
The years of Mr. Curtsinger’s childhood and youth were passed upon his father’s Kentucky farm, for it was in Washington county, that state, this birth occurred September 7, 1851. He was of an ancient family of the “Corn Cracker” state, and Sanford Curtsinger, his father, was born in the county of Washington in February, 1821. The latter was a modest farmer, and when he came to Texas in 1876 he resumed the calling of his early life in Collin county. Since 1894 his residence has been maintained in Bolivar, Denton county, where he is in the enjoyment of a hearty old age.
The Curtsinger origin is presumably German and of Pennsylvania stock. Our subject’s grandfather, John Curtsinger, migrated to Kentucky from the Keystone state in the forepart of the eighteenth century and founded this branch of the Curtsinger family. He settled in Washington county, aided in the first work of reduction of nature in the state of Daniel Boone there at about ninety-seven years of age. His wife was a Hickason and their children were Martin, John, James, William, Sanford, “Doc,” Louisa, wife of William Pool; Elizabeth, wife of William Cheshire; Lucinda married W. J. S. Huff, and Jane, who became Mrs. William Bishop.
Sanford Curtsinger married Mary A., a daughter of Eleven White and Betsy (Hupp) White. Mary (White) Curtsinger was born in Washington county, Kentucky, in 1830, September 14, and is the companion of her worthy husband today. Their children were: William H., of Quanah, Texas; George W., of this notice; John L., of Bolivar, Texas; Jesse F., of Krum, Texas; James D., of Hereford, Texas; Richard, of Prior Creek, Indian Territory; Samuel, of Bolivar; Emma, wife of Nat Pipes, of Collin county; Bettie, now Mrs. William Coconougher, of Collin county, and Alice, who married James Stogner, of Denton county.
George W. Curtsinger acquired a liberal English education in the country and village schools of his native county and remained an adjunct to the parental home till approaching this twentieth year. He became a farmer on beginning an independent career and continued it until his advent to Texas and the west, when he embarked in the mercantile business at McKinney, in Collin county. His means were limited, and his first stock was, consequently, a very modest and unpretentious one. The firm for several years was Curtsinger Bros., but lastly a change to Curtsinger & Lewis was made, and the business grew in importance and extent until the stock carried represented several thousand dollars and the business done reached a total of $50,000 a year. Constant confinement told on our subject’s constitution in time, and following the warning and advice of a physician, he sold his interest in the store and sought rest and recuperation on his Clay county ranch.
For some years prior to his abandonment of mercantile pursuits Mr. Curtsinger had had stock interests in Clay county on a tract of wild land near Joy. When it was decided to change his residence to his ranch he erected a commodious cottage and other suitable structures and June 6, 1890, he took possession of his new permanent home. Grain and cattle raising constitute his chief interest and his herd of mixed stock cattle are approaching a high grade of White Faces, originating from registered stuff from the Blue Grove Stock Farm.
September 27, 1870, Mr. Curtsinger married in Washington county, Kentucky, Dicea, a daughter of Isaac and Rolanda (McMannis) Lynch. Mr. Lynch died in 1884 at the age of fifty-four, while his widow survived until 1888, dying at the age of seventy-four. Merideth Lynch, their first born, resides at Bloomfield, Kentucky; Mrs. Curtsinger, the second, was born April 30, 1853. The others were: Susan, of Washington County, is the wife of William Baker; James, who died in 1892; Andrew, of Marion county, Kentucky; Bettie, of Nashville, Missouri; wife of Stephen D. Crouch; Isaac, of Springfield, Kentucky; William, who died in Dallas, Texas, left a daughter, Birdie, of Waco; Jerome, of Shelby county, Kentucky, and Rolanda, wife of Henry Scruggs, of Washington county, Kentucky.
The issue of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Curtsinger are: Laura E., wife of Arthur R. Clerihew, of Antelope, Texas; with children, Willie, Morris, Arthur J., Flo and Mildred; Lucy S., wife of E. A. Hicks, of Joy, Texas, with children, Eileen and Ruth; Ivan J., class of 1904, graduate law department of the State University of Texas; Walter, of Dallas, Texas, married Rena Webster, and Eugene, a student in Palmer’s Studio of Music at Denton. Stanley and Andrew are two sons who died in early childhood.
After twenty-eight years’ residence in the Lone Star state, living a strenuous and industrious life, in the pursuit of an honorable competence for his declining years, we find George W. Curtsinger in the near approach to the evening of his career with ample provision for his future domestic needs, with honorable offspring taking their stations and doing their part in the affairs of men and with an untarnished name and a character unimpeached of unassailed.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 95-96.