Was from Georgetown, Kentucky, and became a citizen of Indianapolis in the year 1823.  He was a great beau and gallant of the young ladies, and a general favorite with them; he wore a wig, and had managed to keep it a profound secret from the female portion of the village. 

 

    He was a clever, whole-souled kind of a man, liberal to a fault, and would stop at neither labor nor expense to accommodate a friend or display his gallantry. 

 

    He had invited the elder sister of the writer (now Mrs. S. H. Patterson, of Jeffersonville) and another young lady to take a ride in his carriage to the plumb orchard at the old Delaware village of Bruettstown, almost twelve miles north on White River; the writer, as usual, was on hand a horse-back.  On the return from the orchard the horse he was driving stopped, or balked, in the middle of the river at Broad Ripple, and would not be induced to move.  Mr. Culbertson stepped out of the carriage on a large stone that stood close by, and while flourishing is whip to strike the horse knocked his hat, and with his wig, into the swift water at his feet; with an oath he exclaimed that his "hat, head, wig and all were gone;" he jumped into the water, and with difficulty recovered it and placed it on his head dripping wet; he got on my horse and left me with the balky one to get out as best I could, which in due time, and by the help of a passer-by, I did.  He was a very sensitive man, and so deeply was he mortified that I could not induce him to get in the carriage again that evening.  Soon after this occurred he left the country.

 

    I saw him in New Orleans in the year 1840, some fifteen years after this incident, and he referred to it with tears in his eyes as being the ruin of him, and causing him to become dissipated.  This incident shows what trivial circumstances sometimes seals a person's destiny for life.

 

 

Nowland, John H. B., "Early Reminiscences of Indianapolis, with Short Biographical Sketches of Its Early Citizens, and of a Few of the Prominent Business Men of the Present Day," 1870, pp. 156-157.