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Robert Samuel Curham was
born in Kildare, Ireland in 1843 and later served an apprenticeship in
the drapery trade in Dublin, Ireland. Robert left Ireland in 1863 at
twenty years of age, arriving in New York City.
There, almost
immediately after his arrival, Robert voluntarily enlisted into the 13th
New York Regiment Heavy Artillery Regiment, Company “B” on
August 29, 1863, under the name Robert Curham and served under General
Ulysses S. Grant and was, according to family history, apparently
wounded at some point.
The 13th New
York heavy Artillery Regiment was organized when Colonel William A.
Howard received authority, May 11, 1863, to organize the regiment in New
York City. On July 29, 1863 men who had enlisted for the 11th Artillery
and who were not assigned to companies, were transferred to the 13th;
including men who had enlisted for the 29th Infantry Volunteers, the
36th Battery and men from the 14th Artillery. The companies were
mustered into service for three years at Staten Island; Companies A, B
and C, on August 12th, 29th and September 11, 1863
respectively. Men of Company “B” were recruited principally at New
York city, Buffalo, Salamanca, Seneca and Watertown.
The regiment left New
York in detachments, the 1st Battalion, Companies A, B, C and D, leaving
on October 5, 1863 and served as infantry and heavy artillery in the
Departments of the East until it left the State. It then served in
Virginia and North Carolina; the 1st and 2nd Battalions in
the defences of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, and Newbern, North
Carolina and the 3rd Battalion as a coastguard on board
vessels of war along the Atlantic coast.
On June 28, 1865,
Companies I, K, L and M, and the men of the other companies, whose term
of service would expire before October I, 1865, were, under the command
of Colonel Howard, honorably discharged and mustered out at Norfolk,
Virginia, leaving in existence only five companies, A, B, C, D and G,
which on July 18, 1865 were transferred to the 6th New York
Volunteer Artillery.
On July 18, 1865, though
one record says June 27th, Robert was transferred into
Company “I”. New York 6th New York Heavy Artillery.
Robert was finally mustered out of service on August 24, 1865.
After the war Robert’s
profession was at sea until 1873 when he migrated to Australia where his
sister lived, and found employment with the South Melbourne Gas Company.
Robert was a standing member of the ‘Order of Druids’ in Melbourne
but never occupied any public position beyond that of serving on the
Wanganui School Committee in New Zealand. The ‘Order of Druids’ was
a Celtic cultural society
with their main object being education to imbue their scholars with a
firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul; which, according
to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another and
robs death of all its terrors. Druidry is about re-connecting to
the earth and to ones ancestral roots, the walking of a path through
which one may rediscover their heritage and in Australia it is involved
in providing simple health insurance.
In 1874 Robert migrated
again, to New Zealand, under engagement to assist in the construction of
the Hokitika Gas Works and bought a house in Hokitika, on the South
Island, in 1880; becoming manager of the Hokitika Gas Works and
retaining his position for nineteen years. In 1881 the Directors of the
Wanganui Gas Works met and it was decided that Mr. Robert Curham who was
living in Greymouth, New Zealand would be installed as the new manager
of the gasworks. So in 1882 Robert gave up his position of Manager of
the Hokitika Gas Works and took the position of manager of the Wanganui
Gas Works; where his brother, Charles Curham, already located. Charles
Curham was already well known throughout Hokitika and Rima, New Zealand.
They started the new company with two men, himself and his brother, and
a boy; the company growing to seventeen men by the time he left the
company; producing 26 million cubic feet of gas. Robert was also
instrumental in the construction of
the Palmerston North gas plant.
He held his position in
that company up until the time of its municipalisation in 1901, when he
resigned and was appointed Manager and Secretary for the Port Chalmers
Gas Company in Dunedin, New Zealand. When he severed his connections
with the Wanganui Gas Works Robert was presented by Mr. Johnston, senior
employee of the company, with a clock, a Gladstone travelling bag with
his name inscribed on it and a beautiful travelling rug; while Mrs.
Curham was presented with a silver teapot and tray. Robert was also
presented with, from Mr. Ensoll, a combined time piece and weather-glas
(clock, barometer and thermometer) in which a silver plate was inscribed “From John Ensoll to his old chief, Mr. R. Curham, Wanganui,
1901”. Robert, instead of leaving without pay, was also awarded a
bonus in the form of a ‘leave of absence’ with full pay until the
following March, when the corporation would take control of the company.
That Thursday evening the congregation of his church, the Gospel Hall,
presented Robert with a pair of gold spectacles. They left the following
Monday from Wellington, New Zealand for Port Chalmers in Dunedin.
The move meant
disrupting the schooling of his children as they were attending school
in Wanganui, one at the Wanganui Infant School. Daniel was then
attending Queen’s Park School where he was awarded a Standard VI
attendance prize for ‘Proficiency’. In December 1908 Barbara Curham
was awarded the Caledonian Society’s gold medal at school for
‘Proficiency’, receiving the third highest mark in her class and in
October 1914 Francis Mabel Curham successfully passed her senior class
III repeated English studies.
In March 1882 Robert was
also involved in the gold mining industry at Woodstock, New Zealand. In
March of that year Robert Curham, along with his partners Mr. Roberts,
Mr. Curnick and Mr. Berry acquired fifteen pennyweights (23.4 grams or
.78 troy ounces) per load from their holdings. At the time they had
4feet 6 inches of wash dirt and
the gold was of a heavy scaly nature. They recovered from fifty buckets
of earth some 1 1/4 ounces of gold.
In 1885 Robert married
the daughter of Captain Daniel Macfarlane of Troon, Scotland, Janet
McFarlane/Gilchrist and they had 6 children: Robert born in 1887,
Mabel born in 1889, Winifred born in 1891, Daniel born in 1893, Alan
born in 1896 and Barbara born in 1898.
Robert Samuel Curham was
seized by paralysis and suffered for two weeks, slowly slipping away,
until he died at his residence in Wickliffe Terrace in Port Chalmers,
Dunedin, on Monday, July 9, 1906 at 63 years of age and was buried on July 12, 1906 in the Port Chalmers
Cemetery; block LO, plot 104. Also buried in the same plot is William
Willis who died at 74 years of age on October 14, 1906. |
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Canterbury-West
Coast: Historical Societies and Heritage Support Groups
Catholic
Diocese Of Dunedin, New Zealand
Civil War Data Systems Databank
Dunedin City Council
Druids of Australia
Evening Post,
Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 101, 26 October 1914
Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVII, Issue 7341, 28 October 1901
History of the 13th regiment, N.G. S.N.Y.,
James
de Mandeville, 1894
New York in the War of the Rebellion,
Frederick Phisterer, 1912.
Report of the Adjutant General, New York State
Robert and Dale Curham, descendants, New Zealand, robcurham@hotmail.com
Otago Witness, Issue 2485, 30
October 1901
Otago Witness, Issue 2730, 11 July
1906, Page 37
Otago Witness, Issue 2730, 11 July
1906
The
David Howell collection, 1861-1865,
David Howell, US Army Military
Heritage Institute, Carlisle, PA.
Wanganui City Council
Wanganui Herald,
Volume XV, Issue 4486, 5 October 1881
Wanganui Herald,
Volume XXXI, Issue 9315, 16 December 1897
Wanganui Herald,
Volume XXXIV, Issue 10215, 13 December 1900
Wanganui Herald,
Volume XXXV, Issue 10470, 15 October 1901
Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue
10480, 26 October 1901
Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue
11914, 10 July 1906
Wanganui Herald,
Volume XXXXI, Issue 12344, 12 December 1907
Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXI,
Issue 12346, 14 December 1907
West Coast Times,
Issue 4040, 24 March 1882
West Coast Times,
Issue 12071, 20 November 1901
West Coast Times,
Issue 9970, 23 November 1894
6th
New York Heavy Artillery Regimental Roster 13th New York Heavy Artillery Regimental Roster |
