| Biography* | | John William Culpepper wrote in an 18 Aug 1994 letter that Mrs. M. A. (Inez Culpepper) Champion, according to her daughter, Edith (Champion) Zuber, sold her home in 1950 to Mrs. J. T. Edge's father. J. W. Culpepper wrote that the house was "approximately 3/4 of a mile from Wadley on Rt. 22." The house was on land which appears to have been in the Culpepper family since 1850. The land appears to have been a 58.84 acre lot which was noted as Fraction C of section 14 in Township 22 Range 10 of Randolph Co., AL. The land is south of Wadley on the Chambers County line and Route 22 crosses diagonally through the bottom half of the land. It was originally sold to William Culpepper 21 Feb 1850. Mrs Champion's grandfather, William Washington Culpepper would only have been 15 years old at this date so it is assumed that William Henry Culpepper, John Culpepper, Sr.'s son, bought the land. John Culpepper, Sr. is known from census records to have been living near present day Wadley in 1850 and an extant letter from him to a son, Francis G. Culpepper, indicates that he owned land in the area but only his sons show up in land records. Since John Culpepper, Sr. had "broken up housekeeping" by 1853, it is assumed that he was living on one of the parcels that was in the name of one of his sons. John William Culpepper wrote 18 Aug 1994 that he had located Mrs. John (Edith Champion) Zuber, a descendant of John Jefferson Culpepper. John William believes that the land that Edith's mother, Mrs. M. A. (Inez Culpepper) Champion, sold was the land that had originally belonged to his great-great-great-grandfather, John Culpepper, Sr. and that it is where Mrs. Champion's great-grandfather, John Jefferson Culpepper spent the last years of his life: You will see that rt. 22 leaves Wadley in a Southwesternly direction. The home of current residents, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Edge, is approximately 3/4 of a mile from Wadley, on Rt. 22 [near the Chambers Co., AL line]. I don't know how far east the property extends [at the point where Route 22 meets a secondary road going south to Chambers County], but I believe it extends north to Hutton Creek [the lot covers about 2/3 of the distance from the Chambers County line to Hutton Creek].... Mrs. John Zuber, (Edith Champion Zuber) daughter of Inez Culpepper Champion [Mrs. M. A. Champion], daughter of Robert Benjamin Culpepper, son of William Washington Culpepper, son of John Jefferson Culpepper advises that her mother sold the property to Mrs. Edge's father in the 1950's.... She said that John Jefferson Culpepper lived at the place with his wife and two sons and remained there after their sons moved to Sand Mountain [Marshall Co., AL]. John and his wife are buried at the Concord Baptist Church Cemetery, located half way between Wadley and Roanoke, Alabama. [John Jefferson Culpepper and his wife, Catherine, are not listed in an index to Concord Church Cemetery records possibly because the graves were unmarked or because the markings can no longer be read.] On the 1850 Census John Jefferson was in Chambers County, Alabama. On the 1860 Census he was in Randolph County, living on what I believe to be John and Nancy [Culpepper]'s place. Which is the one described by Mrs. Odessa Elliot Gay to Eleanor Willingham, Margaret Culpepper and Bill Lowery in 1987. Mrs. Zuber stated that her mother lived at the home place until her husband died and a few years after but found it too much work and moved. It was after she moved that the house on Rt. 22 burned to the ground. |