John B. Curtis

John Bacon Curtis
Born	October 10, 1827 Hampden, Maine
Died	June 13, 1897 (aged 69)
Resting place	Portland, Maine
Nationality	American
Occupation	businessman
Known for	made the first chewing gum prototype for commercial use
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Alice Charlotte Bacon married 13 August 1878
Parent(s)	John Curtis Mary B. Bacon
Relatives	siblings: Charles H. Mary E.
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John Bacon Curtis (October 10, 1827 – June 13, 1897) was an American businessman from Maine.

Born in Hampden, Maine, Curtis attended the normal schools while growing up. He never graduated, but instead worked for the family and others to earn a living. He first was making five dollars a month, which was later increased to six and eventually he worked his way up to twenty-four dollars a month. In addition to being a farmhand he worked as a swamper, clearing underbrush and making roads through the woods.

Curtis thought it would be practical to make and spruce gum as a chewing gum. His family moved to Bangor in 1848, where there would be a better market for such a product. Over a Franklin stove in the Curtis home, they cooked up their first batch. The label they printed on their new product read "State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum."

Curtis made a sufficient production of his gum and went to market it in Portland, Maine. This was the first commercial production of chewing gum. For the first two days in Portland he had no luck selling this new product to merchants. The third day he finally made a sale, but it was a hard sale because of the annoying nature of the product. There was very little market for the product in Portland in 1848 and 1849. Curtis decided to become a traveling salesman starting in 1850, selling additional products like patent medicine. His motto was "Give a man all you can for his money, while making a fair profit yourself."

Curtis was quite ambitious and many times would travel well into the night just to get to the next town before his competition. This way he would have most of that town's business as the wholesale peddler, since the most active would get the principal patronage. The first year he traveled all throughout New England and earned six thousand dollars. Eventually Curtis advanced from being just a peddler to a commercial sales traveler, and included the West into his territory: areas west of Maine such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota and Missouri. He traveled on the Erie Canal and down through the Mississippi River and Ohio River. He would even extend credit for as much as a year. In the United States he was one of the first, if not the very first commercial sales broker as a representative of an Eastern business marketing firm.

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