NatureA Sketch of the life of "Isaac Franklin Culver"

>From the Memorial Record of Alabama Volume I
Publisher Brant & Fuller Madison Wis. 1893

Major Isaac F. Culver, the famous planter and live-stock breeder of Bullock
Co. Al. was born in Hancock Co. Ga. in 1831 and is a son of Isaac and
Margaret (Grace) Culver, natives of the same county. In 1851 the family
came to Alabama and located Henry county, where the father died in 1858, at
the age of sixty-two years, and the mother in 1867, at seventy-eight years
of age, both members of the Methodist church. Isaac Culver began life a
poor man, but was energetic and enterprising, and amassed quite a fortune.
He served in the Florida war and was active in all public affairs affecting
the section in which he lived, although he never sought public office. He
was a son of John Culver, a native of England, who was brought, when young,
to America, by his parents, who first located in Delaware, but subsequently
removed to Georgia, where John married, lived and died. The maternal
grandfather of Isaac Culver was Jeptha Grace who was a planter, and lived
and died in Hancock county Ga. Maj. Culver is the youngest but one of the
ten children born to his parents, of whom two, beside himself, served in the
late war: George W., a planter, and for a short time a colonel in
Hilliard's legion, and who died in Henry Co., Al.; Jeptha who served with
the state troops under Gov. Brown for about a year, and who died at
Jonesborough, Ga., soon after the fall of Atlanta. The major received a
good education in his early days and completed it at Mount Zion, in Hancock
county Ga. In 1850 he married Miss Mary, daughter of John Boran, a native
of Georgia, who died in Washington, Wilkes County. Mrs. Culver was born and
educated in Washington, Ga. and died in 1858, leaving three daughters, viz.:
Maggie, widow of the late J. J. Ramsey, a well known horse breeder of Union
Springs; Mary L., wife of William R. Ethridge, and Fannie H., wife of D. F.
Sessions. The major took his second wife Mrs. Nancy Pugh, widow of Dr.
Thomas Pugh, a cousin of United States Senator James L. Pugh. This lady was
born and educated in Barbour county, Al. and is a daughter of Roderick
McSwain, a native of Scotland, who, when a young man, settled in North
Carolina, where he married, and in 1836 came to Alabama, became a wealthy
planter, and died in Barbour county. To his second marriage the major has
had born to him two sons, viz.: Roderick McSwain, now a well-to-do planter,
and Rev. Frank Pugh, of the Methodist church. Both are graduates of the
Southern University of Greensboro, Al. When Maj. Culver first came to
Alabama, in 1851, he located in Henry county, which has since been his home.
In May 1861, he joined Company A., Sixth Alabama infantry; as a private, and
was at once sent to Virginia. He fought at Seven Pines, Cold Harbor,
Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Boonsboro Gap, Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville,
Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and many other points. He was severely wounded
at Malvern Hill, at Boonsboro Gap, and at Gettysburg, returning home each
time for treatment. At the expiration of his first term of enlistment for
one year he was commissioned Captain, and after the battle of
Chancellorsville he was promoted to be Major, and in the trenches at
Petersburg he was made Lieutenant-Colonel, and from that time on had command
of his regiment, which he lead with Gallantry and Valor. Although common
courtesy would lead a person to greet him as Col. Culver, the major is too
modest to claim a higher title than the one he bears. The major is one of
the most popular men in Bullock County, where he has been placed in various
positions of honor and trust. In 1878 he was elected to the legislature and
again in 1880, and during both terms was chairman of the committee on
temperance. When his last term had expired he was elected superintendent of
education of Bullock county, which office he filled six years, holding also,
during this period, the office of President of the State Agricultural
Society and of the Alabama State Fair association. He is progressive in all
things. He is a large stock holder in the Union Springs Cotton Mills, a
director in the oil mill company, and has one of the most extensive and
complete stock farms in Alabama, as well as a cotton plantation. He is a
man of broad views and commanding presence, and was at one time worshipful
master of Aberfoil lodge, F. & A. M., and is at present a member of St.
John's lodge, No. 62, F. & A. M., at Union Springs, He is active in
politics and all public matters, and has a wide acquaintance at the north as
well as the south.

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