Later Life
Curtis in 1872 also went into the dredging business. He worked on jobs that were from $50,000 to a half a million dollars. He was successful at this business as well. He later even went into the business of ship building. He opened the Curtis shipyard and built ten large ships. He also owned the controlling interest in the ferry between Portland and South Portland and a line of steamers until 1896. Curtis was even in the silver and coal mining business in Maine. In 1880 Curtis was in the farming business on a grand scale near Gothenburg, Nebraska. Here he owned over 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) where he raised Hereford cattle.
Curtis bought in 1878 the largest and most expensively built house in Deering Center, Maine. During the last months of his life he took an interest in ancient Egypt and the pyramids. His creed was do good.
Read more about this topic: John B. Curtis
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“He was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)