Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1908 — THE CULP FAMILY REUNION. [ARTICLE]

THE CULP FAMILY REUNION.

Annual Event Held In Barkley Tp., Last Week. About the year 1834 two stouthearted, rugged Virginians, with wives and children started northwest into the wilderness to make a home for themselves and their posterity. Chicago was then a military station comprising a log fort, ‘surrounded with a stockade of poles several feet high. The Blackhawk war was still in progress in northern Illinois, and Rensselaer was a settlement of two or three houses made of logs, in a very rude manner at that. These two fathers were George Culp and Thomas Randle, and the mothers were Mary Burton Culp and Nancy Culp Randle. Enured to the hardships and privations of pioneer life, they were not satisfied with conditions that they came in contact with in Tippecanoe county, and they pushed further north after a short residence there, and each chose and entered a piece of land in Barkley tp., this county, where they settled down to make homes. These respective parcels of land have never changed owners, and today are owned by the sons of these worthy fathers. And if these fathers were stout-hearted and courageous, what must be said of the mothers, . who were to be left at home with their little children while the fathers went forth to clear a field from the virgin forest, or into the forests in quest of food for their families, while the treacherous red man, still prowling about the land, was due to pay them a visit at any time, night or day? Their dally duties required a courage and a devotion to their homes of the very highest Order. These were the progenitors of John Thomas Culp, who now occupies the same farm entered by his father, George Culp, in 1835. He was born there and has lived there all his life of 72 years. For several years there has been a custom that has been observed annually, to hold a family reunion of the descendants and their children, toold homestead, where the children and the children’s children are wont to gather and renew acquaintances, relate incidents of the past, and speculate as to the future. Wednesday of last week had been set ap&rt for this purpose, and to the number of 122, the immediate decendants and their children, together with their neighbors, partook of an open air feast that was good enough for a king. Of the children of George Culp there was present, John Thomas, and Walter, who lives near Delphi; Mrs. Elizabeth Culp Tea, of Battle Ground; Mrs. Jane Culp Rlshling, of Monon; and the widow and children of James Culp, deceased, from north of Francesville; James T. Randle and wife, Nelson Randle and wife, of this city; Erastus Smith of Battle Ground, and John Tillett now of Francesville. Old neighbors were present together with scores of the second and third generations. From Harvey, dll., George Houser and Mrs. Houser came to be present at this reunion, as Mr. Houser’s first wife was a Randle, a lineal decedent of the first Randle family in this county.