Arthur E. Curless
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur E. Curless
To the community of Swayzee and vicinity Arthur E. Curless has many important and varied relationships. To begin with, Mr. Curless is one of the men who located in what was then the new and scarcely developed section of western Grant County, soon after the war, and by his own thrift and industry improved and made himself the possessor of a large body of fine farming land. He is essentially a farmer, and from the soil has gained the nucleus of his substantial prosperity. In later years, Mr. Curless has undertaken various enterprises more closely affecting the general welfare of Sims Township. He was one of the founders of the town of Swayzee, established the first bank in that village, was active promoter of the first improved roads through the township, and his name has been connected in one way or other with practically every movement for improvement and betterment in this part of the county.
Mr. Curless now has his comfortable home in Section twenty-seven of Sims Township, where he enjoys the fruits of a well spent career. He was born in Brown County, Ohio, January 17, 1846, a son of Byard and Eliza A. (Hall) Curless. The father was born in New Jersey, a son of Asher Curless, who came from Scotland to the United States, first locating in New Jersey, which remained his home the balance of his life. Byard Curless was reared in New Jersey, and later moved out to Brown Count, Ohio, where he married. He was a poor man at the beginning of his career, but prospered, and later in life moved to Grant County, where his death occurred. His wife also passed away in this county. They were members of the Methodist Protestant Church. Of their eleven children, two are still living, one being Arthur E. and the other Eliza, wife of John T. Fryermood, of Wabash County. The sons, Morris L. and Samuel B., were both Union soldiers during the Civil war.
Arthur E. Curless was reared on the home farm in Brown County, where he attended district school during three months of each year. He is one of the men who can look back to the old log school house days, and recalls the time when a school house was of the rudest type of construction and furnished with rough hewn benches and with a puncheon floor. In 1863, he first came to Grant County, and during the winter of 1863-4 taught a term of school in Sims Township. After that he returned to Ohio to the old farm, remaining with his parents until his marriage. His marriage occurred July 13, 1865, when Miss Ada E. Hite became his wife. She was born in Brown County, Ohio, December 3, 1846, a daughter of Noah and Elizabeth (Boyce) Hite. Her father was born in Virginia, and her mother in Maryland, and they came separately to Brown County, Ohio. Noah Hite's father was in the War of 1812. Mrs. Curless received her education in the common schools of Ohio.
Mr. and Mrs. Curless began their married career without capital, and with their youthful energy as the chief insurance against he future. On January 1, 1870, they came to Grant County and located in Sims Township, where Mr. Curless bought eighty acres of raw land. He and his wife went to work with a will to improve and to make this place productive, and in a few years they were well on the high road to substantial prosperity. As their resources have increased, Mr. Curless has added more land, and now owns two hundred and eighty acres of the Sims Township soil, all of which is well drained, has the best of improvements in the way of fences and buildings, and each season's crops represent a very desirable income. Mr. and Mrs. Curless have no children. They are both active members of the Methodist Church in Sims Township, and fraternally he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and both have membership in the Lodge of the Rebekahs. He is a past noble grand, and a member of the Grand Lodge of Odd Fellowship in Indiana. Politically he is a Republican, and at different times ahs done active work for the support of his ticket in this county.
Mr. Curless with Morris L. Curless, Willis Zirkle and James Mark laid out and named the town of Swayzee in Sims Township. They made a contract with what is now the Toledo, St. Louis & Western R. R., then a narrow gauge line, according to which the local parties were to donate the land, build a depot, grade and put ties on for a switch, and after this contract was fulfilled the railroad established it as one of its stations and thus gave birth to the town, which is now one of the flourishing smaller centers of Grant County.
In 1901 Mr. Curless established at Swayzee a private bank known as the Curless Bank. He was the sole proprietor of the institution, and so conduced it until August, 1907, when it was a constituent factor in the organization of the First National Bank of Swayzee, an institution which is elsewhere mentioned in this history. Mr. Curless took a large amount of the stock of the new bank, but has since disposed of it. He was elected first president of the First National Bank.
Mr. Curless has the distinction of having been associated with the company of men who drilled the first gas well in Sims Township and was president of the local Gas Company for thirteen years, the company having put in a plant at Swayzee. Mr. Curless has always been progressive in all matters affecting the improvement of his community, and was the petitioner for the first gravel road ever constructed in Sims Township. That road commenced at the Roseburg Range Line, and extended through Sims Township to Howard County, and was called the Curless Extension. He also petitioned for another road from Swayzee to Miertown, and an extension from the southeast corner of Section twenty-seven to Point Isabel. These were the first modern high-roads ever built in Sims Township.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914