Early Life
Harry Clifton Byrd was born on February 12, 1889, in Crisfield, Maryland. He was one of six children of oysterman and county commissioner William Franklin Byrd and his wife Sallie May Byrd. In his youth, Byrd worked in the Chesapeake Bay fishing industry, where he saved most of his money to finance his college education. He attended Crisfield High School, where he excelled on the baseball diamond, and was also known as his hometown's first recreational jogger.
A later source described how he appeared in 1905:
"He was tall, and as the saying goes, built like a whip. He had a startlingly handsome face, with big, flashing eyes, a splotch of florid red on each cheek, and a mane of black curly hair ... He looked like Rupert of Hentzau, and had all of that worthy's cold, sinister resolution about everything that he did."
Read more about this topic: Curley Byrd
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