Bertie County NcArchives Biographies.....Cullipher, Marcus 1833 - 1893
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Gerald Thomas gerald_thomas00@comcast.net February 4, 2019, 3:39 pm

Source: Personal Research
Author: Gerald W. Thomas

MARCUS CULLIPHER:
A HARD LIFE IN BUCKLESBERRY POCOSIN
by
Gerald W. Thomas

Marcus Cullipher, the son of Henry Cullipher and his wife, Margaret (maiden name
unknown), was born circa 1833 in Bucklesberry Pocosin. Bucklesberry Pocosin,
situated east of Windsor and southwest of Merry Hill in Bertie County, is a
large forest and part swampland. During the nineteenth century, various small
clearing constituting farms were scattered throughout the pocosin. Several
prominent families – Barnacastle, Harden, and Heckstall – lived within the pocosin.
	On August 24, 1850, Marcus married close-neighbor Nancy Keeter. No records
exist to document that any children were born unto Marcus and Nancy. Nancy died
before the end of the 1850s and Marcus subsequently married Isabella Razor on
December 20, 1859.
	The Civil War (1861-1865) significantly impacted Marcus Cullipher. On September
23, 1863, Marcus enlisted as a private in Company F, Sixty-Eighth Regiment North
Carolina Troops.1 Company F was mustered into service at Windsor on September
23, 1863. Capt. John T. Mebane initially commanded the company. The company’s
headquarters from its inception through at least the end of February 1864 were
Capehart’s Church. The members of the company primarily picketed the Chowan
River, watching for the movement of Union gunboats and troops. 
	Private Cullipher served for less than three months. Confederate military
records list him as a deserter on December 25, 1863. However, more than three
weeks prior to that date he had traveled to Plymouth where he enlisted as a
private in Company E, Second Regiment North Carolina Union Volunteers, He
enlisted on December 1, 1863. Marcus’ close relative, Jackson Cullipher, also
enlisted in Company E at Plymouth on the same date.2 Calvin Hoggard, a
near-neighbor of Marcu who also resided in Bucklesberry Pocosin, served as the
captain of Company E. Companies B and E, Second North Carolina Union Volunteers
were assigned to the Federal garrison at Plymouth under the command of Brig.
Gen. Henry W. Wessells.3 Both companies were commanded by Bertie County natives
(Capt. Littleton Johnson commanded Company B) and were comprised mostly of
Bertie County men.
	Confederate Army forces under the command of Brig. Gen. Robert F. Hoke attacked
and besieged Plymouth on Sunday, April 17, 1864. The Confederate ram, Albemarle,
commanded by Capt. James Cooke, joined the battle two days later. Wessells
surrendered the entire garrison to Hoke on Wednesday, April 20.
	Pvt. Marcus Cullipher was reported as present or accounted for from the time of
his enlistment until the Battle of Plymouth. Cullipher was reported as missing
in action at Plymouth, April 17-20, 1864. He escaped from Confederate forces by
traversing the Roanoke and Cashie rivers and associated swamps to reach the
safety of his home less than ten miles (direct-line distance) from Plymouth.
(Pvt. Jackson Cullipher was captured at Plymouth and transported to the
Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, where he died in June 1864.)
Marcus Cullipher returned to his regiment during May-June 1864. Thereafter, he
was present or accounted for until transferred to Company B of the Second
Regiment on November 7, 1864. On February 27, 1865, Union military authorities
consolidated the members of the First and Second Regiments North Carolina Union
Volunteers, into the First Regiment and abolished the Second Regiment. Private
Cullipher was assigned to Company D. He served in that unit until he was
honorably mustered out of service on June 27, 1865, at New Bern.
	Marcus’ second wife, Isabella, died on an undisclosed date. On October 12, 1865
– less than four months after being mustered out of military service – Marcus
married Frances Sowell Cullipher, the daughter of Aquilla Sowell and the widow
of Pvt. Jackson Cullipher. Marcus and Frances had a daughter, Sarah, born circa
1878.
	Marcus acquired a 105-acre tract of land in Bucklesberry Pocosin on an
undisclosed date. It is not evident from whom he purchased the property as no
deed is indexed for the transaction in the land records of the Bertie County
Register of Deeds. On September 22, 1891, Marcus sold the right to construct a
railroad across the land to Branning Manufacturing Company, a lumber enterprise
which owned the Cashie and Roanoke Railroad. The Branning company paid Marcus
$15 for the right to build the road on his land.
	Marcus, poor and illiterate, scratched out a life for himself and small family
in the woods of Bucklesberry Pocosin. During the fall of 1881, he was working
for a lumber company loading logs onto a cart which was hitched to a team of
haul animals (oxen, mules, or horses). The team suddenly bolted and a pole which
Marcus was using to leverage logs onto the cart sharply struck him in the
shoulder, severely injuring him. In 1882 he was back at work in the “log woods”
stumping a tree when a limb broke from the trunk of the tree and crashed into
him, breaking two bones in his left leg. Thereafter, he was bedridden for a
substantial time; he never fully recovered from the injury.
	By the early 1890s, Frances had apparently died, and possibly Sarah. A close
neighbor, Alice Anderson, an African American, cooked for Marcus and washed his
clothes. Marcus – to “reward” Alice for her valuable assistance – devised a will
dated July 6, 1893, in which he bequeathed all his personal property and land to
her. The will stipulated that Alice was entitled to the property if she took
care of him. Cullipher further stated that Alice was to pay his just debts, as
well as his funeral and burial expenses, from his property (proceeds of sale).
R. P. Browne and Robert Shields witnessed the will.
	Sometime prior, or during 1893, Marcus entered into a crop-sharing agreement
with Henry Anderson, the husband of Alice Anderson. The Andersons lived “on the
same place” as Marcus and apparently, Henry assisted Marcus with raising crops.
In early October 1893, Marcus and Henry travelled together to Merry Hill, a
small crossroads community on the edge of the pocosin. While in Merry Hill,
various individuals observed the two men associating with one another. Marcus
and Henry bought “some whiskey” while in the community and departed for their
homes. However, Marcus never returned to his home.
	The morning after Marcus and Henry visited Merry Hill, Marcus’ lifeless body
was found along the Cashie and Roanoke Railroad tracks in Bucklesberry Pocosin.4
His faced was crushed and his neck broken. Bertie County law enforcement
officials quickly postured that Henry Anderson had killed Cullipher. Anderson
was arrested and placed on trial during the early-November 1893 session of
Bertie County Superior Court. Officials “supposed” that Anderson had murdered
Cullipher to gain possession of his property which was to transfer to Alice
Anderson upon Cullipher’s death. Naturally, the case generated considerable
excitement among the local citizens.
Francis D. Winston served as Anderson’s attorney. A number of witnesses for the
State testified that Anderson was last seen with Cullipher in Merry Hill during
the evening before Cullipher’s body was found. The witnesses’ testimony was so
overwhelming and convincing that the jury, after deliberating for about one hour
on Saturday, November 4, rendered a verdict of guilty. The judge sentenced
Anderson to be hanged on Friday, December 15, 1893, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
The execution was to take place in Windsor.5 The Windsor Ledger (November 8,
1893) reported that the “chain of circumstantial evidence wound about … Anderson
was complete. The prisoner had no witnesses and did not testify in his own
behalf. Thus, ended a murder trial of unusual interest to our people.”
Only six days after the trial’s conclusion, Alice Anderson presented Marcus
Cullipher’s will to William L. Lyon, Clerk of Bertie County Court, for probate.
Both J. P. Browne and Robert Shields swore, under oath before Lyon, that the
document presented by Anderson was Marcus’ will. Marcus did not appoint an
executor for his will as all property was to be bequeathed to Alice Anderson,
who was designated to carry out Marcus’ directions (i.e., pay debts, expenses,
etc.). Obviously, law enforcement and court officials found no evidence to
implicate Alice Anderson in Marcus’ murder. 
Before the end of November, Lyon appointed George A. Harden, also a resident of
Bucklesberry Pocosin, to serve as collector for Marcus’ estate. Harden prepared
an inventory of the “chattel property” which included a “Small lot [of] Shucks
one half of all the crop … belonging to Henry Anderson, under his contract.”
Harden held a sale on November 27, 1893, at which he collected only $87.54.
Harden filed his papers with Lyon on January 31, 1894, officially settling the
estate. 
A desperate Anderson did not intend to lounge in the Bertie County jail awaiting
his fate at the end of a hangman’s rope. Anderson broke out of the lock-up and
fled to Martin County. There, the fugitive found employment with a logging
company. On Saturday, April 14, 1894, Anderson was working in the “lumber woods”
between Williamston and Jamesville when a Martin County deputy sheriff, having
learned of Anderson’s whereabouts, moved in to arrest him. The deputy detained
Anderson who broke free and ran. As Anderson fled the deputy “fired two bullets
into his body, killing him.” 
	Marcus Cullipher lived a trying life in a desolate forestland of Bertie County.
He was illiterate and quite poor. Caught up in the chaos of the Civil War in
Bertie County, he served in both the Confederate and Union armies. Fortunately,
he escaped capture by Confederate forces at Plymouth. Marcus married three times
and lost each wife during his sixty-year life. Physically, he was handicapped by
a workplace accident and was obviously unable to care for himself in latter
life. He died violently at the hands of someone he likely trusted who was
apparently focused on obtaining his small property holdings. And, Marcus surely
did not live to enjoy the effects of his last bottle of whiskey.

NOTES
			

1.	The Sixty-eighth Regiment North Carolina Troops was originally intended to be
the Sixty-sixth Regiment.

2.	The author found no record(s) that established Marcus Cullipher’s
relationship to Jackson Cullipher. The author is of the opinion that the two men
may have been brothers, or first cousins.

3.	The Second North Carolina Union Volunteers was one of two Federal Army
regiments organized in eastern North Carolina during the Civil War. The First
Regiment North Carolina Union Volunteers was organized in May 1862. The Second
Regiment was organized in the fall of 1863.

4.	Branning Manufacturing Company, a lumber enterprise, constructed and owned
the Cashie and Roanoke Railroad. The road ran from Powellsville to Perrytown,
and to Jacocks’ Landing (also known as Wellington) on the Cashie River. The
railroad traversed Bucklesberry Pocosin.

5.	During this period in North Carolina’s history, executions (by hanging) were
carried out in the counties. The State assumed the task of capital punishment
from the counties on March 18, 1910.



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