J. Seymour (Josiah Seymour) Currey

Born in 1844, J. Seymour Currey — Josiah Seymour Currey — became a prolific American historian and writer whose work is closely tied to Chicago. Library and archival records identify him as the author of major historical works including Chicago: Its History and Its Builders and The Story of Old Fort Dearborn.

Currey wrote with a strong interest in how cities are made: not just through dates and events, but through civic leaders, neighborhoods, institutions, and local memory. His best-known books from the 1910s focus on Chicago’s growth and on the older frontier history behind places such as Fort Dearborn, making him a useful guide for readers curious about the city’s early story.

He was born on October 2, 1844, and died on December 25, 1928. Sources linked to his life place his birth near Peekskill, New York, and his death in Vancouver, British Columbia. Today, he is remembered mainly through the large-scale regional histories he left behind, which still surface in library collections and digital archives.