This page is going to be all about the family of Alfred Samuel Curtis, who was the first of this Curtis family to be born in New Zealand. He was born in Collingwood on the 9th of July 1859, five years after the birth of his next oldest sibling. They cannot have been in Collingwood for long at this time.
"In his young days he was aprominent sculler and half mile runner.
Lived from the time he was 16 at Stillwater on the Grey River.
He was a prospector and miner all his working life, working for some years in partnership with his younger brother Charles.
The gold bearing reefs, known asLangdon's Reefs were situated almost due north of Stillwater on the north side of the Grey River in the Langdon's Creek area. The Langdons Extended Claim, an antimony lode, later called the Julian Claim was taken over in 1894 by the Curtis brothers, Alfred and Charles.
The Paparoa Range above Stillwater, was where a sensational gold discovery was made by Alfred and Charles when the found a rich quartz reef in 1898. This became known as the Victory Mine and it was operated by a small stamper battery. News of the claim spread and a man David Ziman, who floated large companies for the exploitation of the Inangahua Quartz mines visited Stillwater and offered Alfred andCharles a large sum of money - said to be 10,000 pounds - for their mine.
However, because of the promosing returns which they were receiving the brothers declined his offer.
Fate stepped in shortly after when the reef began to "pinch" out and it was not long before it was completely lost.
Gold bearing quartz is sometimes picked up near the site of the Victory Mine, but the old reef has never been found.
Alfred had married in 1894, Maude Marie Bice and three children were born.
Alfred Samuel died suddenly at his residence in Stillwater on 10 November 1920, aged 61. Some time after his death his wife married again - Walter Edward Church - and moved to Melbourne, Australia to live."
From notes left to me my aunt, Nola Shelton - who, incidentally went to Prince Edward Island with her mother Gerda Joyce, nee Curtis, to visit family in the late 1960s.
