Curry Ct., Wooster, Ohio

A short street between North and Larwill streets is named for a pioneer family which is still in business in Wooster.

James Curry was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1817. In his youth he went West and learned carpentry, reportedly becoming a carpenter on the first steamboat on the Missouri River. In 1835 he went to Texas, but two years later came to Holmes County where he settled after marrying Eliza Cooper Rowland of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. In 1853 the couple moved to Wayne County where two of their seven children were born. Curry established a planing mill at the corner of East Liberty Street and Beall Avenue. In 1874 he and his three eldest sons John, D.C., and Wentworth, bought a lumber yard and a planing miller from Stibbs and Company, and went into business a block away on North Street. But after three disastrous fires in ten years. James Curry went back to his original location on Liberty Street.

In addition to his business activities, he served a term as mayor of Wooster, and was a councilman for several terms. He died in 1884. The present Curry Lumber & Pole Building is located on West Henry Street.

James Curry's son, of the same name, and later his grandsons, operated the James Curry Machine Shop and manufactured steam engines. Many of its engines were used by Wooster manufactures such as the Bucholtz Tannery on Buckeye near North Street which had a 20 h.p. Curry engine. It was the only one of the tanneries in Wooster (there were then three) which employed steam power.