Robert C. Culpepper; Jackson, then Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller



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Robert C. Culpepper. Real estate law is so great a legal field that a number
of the practitioners have been obliged to divide it into several
specialties. One of the most important of these is that pertaining to
successions and land titles, which in these days of commercial piracy has
itself assumed large proportions. To make a success in this legal domain
requires untiring patience, keen business judgment and a broad knowledge of
the practical affairs of men and women. To have acquired eminence in it, as
has Robert C. Culpepper, of Alexandria, is therefore high tribute to precise
and thorough practical wisdom, coupled with good judgment in applying it.

Mr. Culpepper was born in Jackson Parish, Louisiana, May 3l, 1873, a son of
Robert M. and Margaret Virginia (Hawthorn) Culpepper, natives respectively
of Georgia and Arkansas. Robert M. Culpepper was a lad of fourteen years
when he came to Louisiana, and was still a youth when the great struggle
between the South and North began. He enlisted in the Twenty-eighth
Regiment, Louisiana Volunteer Infantry, in which he rose to the rank of
quartermaster sergeant, and served throughout the war, on one occasion being
wounded and on another captured. On his return he engaged in planting and
followed this vocation during the remainder of his active career. Mr.
Culpepper was well thought of in his community and served one term as
assessor of Jackson Parish. He and his wife were members of the Missionary
Baptist Church, and the parents of four Sons and four daughters, of whom six
are living, Robert C. being the third in order of birth.

Robert C. Culpepper attended the public schools of his native parish and
then pursued a course at the State Normal School at Natchitoches, this
preparing him for a career as a teacher. After four years a~ an instructor
he left the schoolroom to accept the position of clerk of the court of
Jackson Parish, to which he had been elected, and in which he served eight
years, from 1900 to 1908, with much credit to himself and to the benefit of
the community. He then became his party's candidate for the State Senate,
from the Twenty-ninth Senatorial District, was duly elected and held that
office for four years. When he left the Senate he accepted the position of
cashier of the Jackson Parish Bank, at Jonesboro, continuing in that
capacity for three years, and then, in 1911, moving to Alexandria, in the
meantime, while otherwise unengaged, he had applied himself to the study of
law, completing his preparation by reading law in the office of Hunter &
Hawthorn, and in 1912 was admitted to the bar. At that time he formed a
partnership with A. M. Pyburn, ,under the firm style of Culpepper & Pyburn,
but since 1921 Mr. Culpepper has practiced alone. While his professional
business is general in character, he devotes the greater part of his time to
successions and land titles, a field of law in which he has something more
than a local reputation. In 1924 he was elected district judge of the Ninth
Judicial District. Politically, Mr. Culpepper is a stanch democrat. He is a
Blue Lodge and Chapter Mason and belongs to the Baptist Church.

In 1900 Mr. Culpepper was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Wyatt, who
was born in Jackson Parish, and to this union there have been born two
children: Lillian, who married Emile Drouett, of Meeker, Louisiana, a cane
planter; and Robert Wyatt, who is attending school. Mrs. Culpepper died in
1911, and Mr. Culpepper took for his second wife Marguerite Albright, who
was born at Durham, North Carolina, a daughter of J. V. and Mamie (Jones)
Albright, and a member of an old and honored family of that state. To this
union there has been born one son: William Albright, who is attending
school. Mrs. Culpepper is a member of the Methodist Church.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 217, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.