CULBERTSON, Charles Wingate - Putnam

Surnames in this biography are: CULBERTSON, Lowry, Wingate, Campbell, Barnhardt, Spigler,

CHARLES WINGATE CULBERTSON, now postmaster of the City of Brazil, is a native of Indiana and has had a great deal of experience in public office, particularly as a Federal employee. He was born in Putnam County, December 8, 1872. His grandparents, James and Emma (Lowry) Culbertson, came to Indiana from Pennsylvania and settled at Bedford, where his grandfather was a farmer and stock raiser. Robert H. Culbertson, father of the Brazil postmaster, studied medicine and during the Civil war was a surgeon in the Eightieth Indiana Regiment, with the rank of major. He saw service in the Army of the Cumberland. After the war he located at Bowling Green in Clay County and practiced medicine there until 1877, when he moved to Brazil. He possessed a thorough knowledge of medicine, and his experience brought him to a position where he was regarded as one of the ablest doctors in Central Indiana. He was still in active practice at the time of his death, September 30, 1899. He is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Dr. Robert H. Culbertson married Eliza Wingate, and Charles W. was their only child.

Mr. Culbertson was educated in the grade and high schools, spent one year in Wabash College and in 1896 was graduated from Butler University. It was his desire to follow the profession of his father, and with that end in view he entered the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York City. He gave up his studies to return home when his father died, and taking charge of his father’s estate required several years. Eventually he abandoned his intention to follow a professional career and has been occupied with business and public duties. In 1921 he was appointed to a position in the internal revenue service at Terre Haute, resigning to become postmaster of Brazil in 1925. He has served as county chairman of the Republican party of Clay County and is a man who readily gives his support to civic undertakings.

He is a thirty-second degree Knight Templar Mason and member of Murat Temple of the Shrine at Indianapolis. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Christian Church, the Phi Kappa Psi college fraternity, and B. P. 0. Elks No, 762, of Brazil. He married, November 30, 1905, Miss Frances M. Campbell, daughter of Alexander C. and Katherine (Barnhardt) Campbell. Her father came from Pennsylvania and for many years was in the drug business at Brazil. The three children of Mr. and Mrs. Culbertson are named Katherine, Mary and Alice. Katherine is the wife of Dr. James F. Spigler, of Terre Haute. Mary is a graduate of Saint Mary of the Woods with the class of 1931 and Alice is a student in the Gulf Park School for Girls at Gulf port, Mississippi.