Joseph Reuben Curtis (1813-1886)
Joseph R. Curtis, of Hyde Park, New York; formerly of Moffat & Co., San Francisco
He was born at 92 Maiden Lane, New York City, and started his career as a clerk in the Astor House. His entrepreneurial uncle, John L. Moffat (1788-1865), had been in business in New York as a successful manufacturer of jewellery and pencil cases with Joseph's father, in the firm of Willmarth, Moffat & Curtis. But in the 1830s, his uncle bought and operated several gold mines in Georgia. Sometime after 1834, Joseph joined him and his partners, Samuel H. Ward (d.1853) and Philo H. Perry. On hearing of the Gold Rush, the partners hauled their coinage equipment overland from Georgia to California. In 1849, they established Moffat & Co., at San Francisco, trading in gold dust before refining it and converting the metal to ingots for export and coins for circulation. They very quickly became California's most important private mint, "earning the highest respect for their product and integrity" and just one year later (1850), the U.S. Assay Company contracted them to issue the new Federal coinage. By 1853, Joseph's fortune was such that he was able to retire to a small estate at Hyde Park in New York where he built the magnificent mansion better known as Drayton House. He married his wife in 1834 at New York City. One child died in infancy, and the other predeceased him.
