Zarah Curtis
1761-1819
Zarah Curtis was born May 2, 1761, in Plymouth, Connecticut, the son of Jotham Curtis and Mary Yale Curtis. Born into colonial New England on the eve of the American Revolution, Curtis came of age during the struggle for independence and spent several of his formative years in military service.
According to E. W. Humphreys’s Memoirs of Deceased Christian Ministers, Curtis entered the service of Connecticut in 1778, when he was about seventeen years old, and served for two years. He subsequently enlisted in the Continental Army in Captain John Webb’s company of Colonel Elisha Sheldon’s Regiment of Light Dragoons. An Ohio soldier-registration card gives his enlistment date as January 1, 1781, while Humphreys dates it a year earlier, to January 1, 1780. Curtis remained in service through the conclusion of the war.
Curtis served as an orderly on the staff of General Howe, initially holding the standing of a noncommissioned officer and eventually attaining the rank of sergeant. This assignment brought him into proximity with many of the leading military figures of the Revolution. In later life, he reportedly spoke of men such as George Washington, the Comte de Rochambeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, Friedrich von Steuben, and Generals William Alexander—Lord Stirling—Samuel Holden Parsons, William Heath, and Benjamin Lincoln. His reported wartime experiences included engagements at Horseneck, King’s Bridge, and the Harlem River, as well as participation in the capture of the brig Three Brothers off Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1783.
Following the war, Curtis returned to civilian life. On October 22, 1784, at Litchfield, Connecticut, he married Phalley—also recorded as Fally—Yale, a daughter of Aaron Yale and Anna Hosmer. The couple raised a large family. The surviving notes name six daughters—Violeta, Sarah, Eliza, Eunice, Mary, and Sophia—and three sons—Hosmer, Henry, and Samuel—although another family account states that they had ten children.
Curtis and his family participated in the westward movement that carried many New England families into Vermont, northern New York, and eventually Ohio. After living for a time in Vermont, they settled in Champlain, Clinton County, New York. In 1809, Curtis undertook the long journey to Newark, Ohio—a trip said to have required more than two months. He spent the remainder of his life in Licking and Knox counties, then still developing communities on Ohio’s frontier.
Curtis’s religious life underwent an important transformation during these years. About 1798, he joined the Methodist Church and remained in that fellowship for approximately two decades. Over time, however, he became convinced that the doctrine of the Trinity was not taught in the Bible. In 1819, he united with the Christian Church, part of the movement commonly known as the Christian Connection. Rejecting binding creeds and denominational names, the Christian Connection emphasized the Bible as its rule of faith and the simple name “Christian” for Christ’s followers.
Curtis became an elder and minister among Ohio’s Christian churches. Although the surviving notes do not provide a complete record of the congregations he served, they show that he earned an honored place among the ministers of the movement. When the Ohio Central Christian Conference assembled at Bethlehem Chapel in Bennington Township, Licking County, on August 23, 1836, Curtis was listed among the elders present. A report of that meeting appeared in the November 1, 1836, issue of The Christian Palladium. His participation places him directly within the organized work of the Christian Connection in central Ohio.
Humphreys remembered Curtis as “a man and minister of irreproachable character and of acknowledged usefulness,” one who commanded the respect of both his conference and the people who knew him. His ministry represented a second form of public service: the young cavalryman of the Revolution became, in old age, a preacher serving the churches and settlements of a growing state.
Following Phalley’s death, Curtis married Abigail Edwards on January 19, 1832, in Knox County, Ohio. He lived until June 9, 1849, dying near Utica at the age of eighty-eight. He was buried in Mound View Cemetery at Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he is recognized as one of the Revolutionary War veterans interred there.
Zarah Curtis’s long life connected two significant eras of American history. Born in colonial Connecticut, he fought for independence as a young man, carried his family westward during the settlement of Ohio, and devoted his later years to preaching among the churches of the Christian Connection. His story is that of a soldier, pioneer, family patriarch, and minister whose life spanned the nation’s transformation from a collection of British colonies into an expanding republic.
-Scott Harp - 08.24.2026
Sources: -E. W. Humphries, Memoirs of Deceased Christian Ministers Or, Brief Sketches of the Lives and Labors of 975 Ministers, Who Died Between 1793 and 1880, pages 103-104; Revolutionary Enlistment Records; The Christian Palladium November 1, 1836, pages 196-197.
Directions To Grave
- The Curtis family burial ground is located in the Mound View Cemetery in Mount Vernon, Knox County, Ohio. Mount Vernon several miles NE of Columbus, Ohio at the conjunction of Hwys. 36, 13 & 3. The cemetery is located north of Mt. Vernon on Hwy. 3 on the town's outskirts. Enter the cemetery and head to the top of the hill, and look for the tallest monument. It will the Curtis family plot. It is fenced in and easy to find. The Plot info is: Lot 1, Section 3, Gr. 1. The GPS below is the actual location of Zarah Curtis's grave.
GPS Location
40°24'12.2"N 82°29'02.7"W
or D.d. 40.403388,-82.484087
Phalley Curtis
Wife of
Zarah Curtis
and daughter of Aaron Yale
and Anna Hosmer Yale,
born at Hartford, Conn.
June 1769
DIED
August 15, 1831
AE. 69 Yrs.
Son Of The Revolution - 1775
Zarah Curtis
1761-1849
Zarah Curtis
Born
in Litchfield, Conn.
May 2, 1761
Died
June 7, 1849
AE
88 Yrs.
Photos Taken 04.20.2026
Webpage produced 08.24.2026
Courtesy Of Scott Harp
www.TheRestorationMovement.com
Special Recognition: It was an extreme pleasure for your webeditor to spend April 16-22, 2026 in the state of Ohio. Hundreds of miles were traversed and a good number of graves of gospel preachers of yesteryear were located. Also, while in the state, I thorough enjoyed preaching a Gospel Meeting at the Alkire Road church of Christ in SW Columbus.