May 8, 1918
GUSN-368458
Military commission dated May 8, 1918, appointing Harry A. Curtis as a captain in the United States Army. Signed by Assistant Secretary of War Benedict Crowell. Also bears a stamp dated May 14, 1918, from the office of the Adjutant General, and is signed by Henry P. McCain, the Adjutant General at that time. Commission includes an illustration of an eagle clutching arrows and olive branches in its talons, and is also embossed with an official War Office stamp.
military commissions
captains (military officers)
wars
military commissions
1 military commission, illustrated; 11 x 14 inches
EP001
Ephemera collection
1943
EP001.15.041
Gift
Gift of the Misses Curtis, June 7, 1943.
Washington (DC)
United States. Army (Issuing body)
military commissions
Curtis, Harry Appleton, 1875-1943
McCain, H. P. (Henry Pinckney), 1861-1941
Crowell, Benedict, 1869-1952
United States. Army
World War I
Item
Henry (Harry) Appleton Curtis was born in 1875 in Manchester, Mass., one of ten surviving children of Brigadier General Greeley Stevenson Curtis and his wife Harriet Sumner (Appleton) Curtis. Harry was a descendant of Boston's elite Appleton family on his mother's side, and his father and uncle were both noted Civil War officers. Harry graduated from Harvard University in 1896. He enlisted in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War, serving ffrom June to September 1898 in the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, also known as Theodore Roosevelt's famed "Rough Riders". Upon his return to Massachusetts, Harry worked as a mining engineer.
Harry married widow Grace Lindley (Fargo) Chauncey, daughter of Manhattan financier James F. Fargo, in 1913. He re-enlisted in the army as a captain during World War I, serving from May to December 1918. The couple had no children. Following Grace's death in 1931, Harry relocated to Palm Beach, Florida, where he worked for a power company. He died in 1943 at the age of 68.
Harry was a maternal first cousin of Historic New England (then the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) founder William Sumner Appleton.
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