Additional images: Letterhead, Cyrus Currier, 1902 advertisement

Cyrus Currier and Sons built the presses that Currier & Ives (in NYC) used for the images on this web site.

Cyrus Currier's mule train trip to California - (off site)

        Cyrus Currier settled in New Jersey in about the year 1835, residing first in Livingston and later in Newark. He soon secured employment at the shops conducted by Seth Boyden, one of America’s leading inventors.  There, Cyrus Currier, and excellent workman, helped in the construction of the first two outside connecting-rod locomotives ever built. They were for the Morris & Essex and Orange & Essex Railroads.

        In March, 1842, Cyrus Currier had acquired ability and capital enough to establish a plant known as Currier, Davis and Jacobus. He specialized, at first, in paper making machinery, and around this time also built a lithograph press for his cousin Nathaniel Currier, a lithographer in New York City. His blacksmith shop, foundry and machine shop enterprise, occupied an establishment at Commerce Street 23 and New Jersey Railroad Avenue, now Railroad Place.

        The firm name was changed in the ensuing years; from Currier, Davis and Jacobus, to Currier and Jacobus, to Currier and Sanford, to Cyrus Currier , and finally Cyrus Currier and Sons.  With the foresight that makes for ultimate success, Cyrus Currier inculcated to his sons, Osceola, Cyrus, and Francis, the principles of his business and manufacturing method so that they might carry on a tradition that he was fast erecting.  He had built a large lathe for finishing paper mill dryers, which he finished personally, chipping and filing it by hand; no mean mechanical feat. The first transfer press for printing United States paper currency was a product of his shop. The early equipment and engines for drawbridges were also from the plant of Cyrus Currier. In inventive fields he perfected numerous original attachments for leather manufacturing and finishing machinery, a fitting endeavor for a member of the Currier family.

        During the years of a long and successful commercial life, Cyrus Currier maintained intimate friendships with both his cousin Nathaniel Currier of Currier & Ives notoriety, his former employer Seth Boyden, and inventor Thomas A. Edison, the Edison Laboratories being a regular customer of the Currier firm.

        Cyrus Currier resided in the Roseville section of Newark, settling there when it was a suburb of the thriving city of which it is now a part.  At the time of his death Mr. Currier resided at No. 566 Warren Street.  Died, at Newark, New Jersey, December 6, 1892  Married, first, in Lowell, Massachusetts, October 2, 1836, Nancy Maria Roper  who died at Newark, New Jersey, October 28, 1853. Married, second, in Newark, New Jersey, April 26, 1857, Charlotte Axford, who died at Newark, New Jersey, September 25, 1902.