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Birth: May 03, 1828 in Preston, Chenango Co., NY
Death: August 15, 1898 in Battle Creek, Calhoun Co., MI
Burial: Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek, Calhoun Co., MI
Findagrave: 15428098
Spouse: Cordelia Alzina Clarke
Parents: Ephraim Curtis and Susan Rogers
Editor’s Note: Prior to becoming a Seventh-day Adventist, David Porter Curtis was a Seventh-day Baptist minister. Upon joining the Adventist church, Curtis was designated as an Adventist pastor. For many years, he served in the role of Minnesota Conference Secretary. The following account which appears in the book, Captains of the Host, tells of the important role Curtis played in bringing the Spicer family into the church. Ambrose C. Spicer and his son, William A. Spicer, both became Seventh-day Adventist pastors – William also became a missionary to India and served as General Conference President for eight years.
“One Seventh Day Baptist family in Milton who later became Seventh-day Adventists were Elder and Mrs. A. [Ambrose] C. Spicer, the parents of William A. Spicer, eighth president of the General Conference. It was after their removal to Minnesota, where their son William was born, that in 1874 they accepted the third angel’s message. One of their friends, a Seventh Day Baptist minister, D. P. Curtis, had accepted the faith, in which he afterward became a prominent worker. Spicer went to recover him. Instead, he was convinced, through study with Curtis, and he himself became a Seventh-day Adventist. He preached, and wrote for the Review and Herald, and was soon called to Battle Creek, where he afterward resided.”
Captains of the Host, pg. 232 footnote on pg. 680
The Ambrose Spicer family moved from Minnesota to Battle Creek, MI, around 1880. About five years later, the David Curtis family also moved from Minnesota to Battle Creek, MI. Ambrose Spicer and David Curtis are both buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, MI, where they await the day when they will greet their Savior on the resurrection day.
Photo: Steven Curtis Collection
Life Sketch:
DEATH CLAIMS ANOTHER LABORER.
August 15 the sad word came to us from the Sanitarium, that Elder D. P. Curtis, of Minnesota, had fallen in death. He had come to the Sanitarium to receive relief for a tumor on the face, the treatment of which seemed to be progressing favorably, when on the 14th he was taken suddenly and seriously ill with intestinal derangement, necessitating an operation. From this he was unable to rally, and died the 15th.
Elder Curtis was born in the State of New York, in May, 1828, and had consequently reached the age of seventy years and three months at the time of his decease. At the age of twenty he entered the ministry in the Seventh-day Baptist denomination, in New York. About twenty-six years ago, he united, in Minnesota, with the people that connect with the keeping of the commandments of God the blessed hope of the soon coming of Christ, and entered the work in that State. Most of the time since then he has held the office of secretary of the Minnesota Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, endearing himself to his associates in labor by the faithful and efficient performance of the duties of his office.
He was married at the age of twenty, and has had seven children, all living, and all with him in the faith, except one, that one being an exception only in the fact of not having made an open espousal of this belief. Six years ago, Aug. 5, 1892, the companion with whom he had shared for forty-four years the joys and blessings, as well as the sorrows, of life, was laid in the grave; but three years ago he married another estimable woman, the widow of one who had long been the treasurer of the Minnesota Conference; and she remains to mourn his sudden death. Of his children, one is following in the footsteps of his father in the ministry, and others are holding positions of responsibility and usefulness in the work. Thus, after bringing up to maturity a large family, and passing a little beyond the threescore years and ten which the Scriptures mention as the term of a well-rounded human life, he has closed his record, laid off the armor, and lain down in “the house appointed for all living,” to rest a little while, till the laborers shall be called forth to receive their reward.
Remarks were made at the funeral, August 17, on the lesson of a life of which over half a century was spent in the gospel ministry. As a conclusion of the exercises, the son, Elder E. A. Curtis, of Illinois, bore a tender and appropriate testimony to the sterling character of his father and the esteem in which he was held, thus confirming the scripture concerning godly parents – that their “children arise up, and call them ‘blessed.'”
U. S. [Uriah Smith] – Review and Herald, August 23, 1898, 16.