Frederick Curtis was born in Connecticut of Quaker stock and English descent. He married Gittie Milius, daughter of Jacob Milius, and they were among the early settlers of Dutchess County, NY. There he was quite prominent in public life, serving as constable and coroner. They both died when past middle life in Columbia County, NY. Six sons and five daughters were born to them as follows: Hezekiah; Harriet, who married Jacob Hiserodl; Emma, who married John Pulver; Edward; William; Hiram; Sally Ann, who died unmarried when over sixty years of age; Angeline, who died at the age of thirty years; Philo; Betsy, who married Ely Colpah, and Samuel.
Philo Curtis was a carpenter by trade in early manhood. Later becoming a farmer, he came to Wisconsin in 1849 and bought a farm in Bristol Township, Kenosha County. To his first purchase of 280 acres he afterward added forty more, and has spent most of his life since cultivating his land. He married Mary Hunt, who was born at Quaker Basin, Oneida County, NY, and they became the parents of three children: Emma V., wife of Welcome W. Burdick of Bristol Township, has two children Leon and Alvie; Mary Alice, decease wife of Stephen Moran, had six children, Frank, Amy, Peter, Richard, and Minnie and Martha (twins, that latter of whom is deceased); Cyrus A., is mentioned below. On Aug. 14, 1865, Philo Curtis lost his wife at the age of twenty-nine years, and for the next eleven years he lived in the East. Since 1876, however, he has lived in his old home, though his son is now in charge of the farm.