Born in Detroit of Irish immigrant parents, Curtin came to Milwaukee in 1837 to join his mother's family the Furlongs and settle on a farm in Greenfield. In the 1840's the Curtins moved into this typically Irish stone house described in Curtin's Memoirs. After his father's death, Jeremiah preserved in his love for learning and languages and graduated from Harvard College in 1863. His command of Russian won him a position in the U.S. Legation in St. Petersburg in 1864, thus launching his forty-year world-wide career as linguist, translator ( Slenkiewicz's Quo Vadis ), ethnologist, folklorist and diplomat. He died and was buried at his wife's Vermont home in Bristol.

Photo is dated 1976.

Photo measures 10 x 8.25 inches.