Henry Harrison Culver (August 9, 1840 – September 27, 1897) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known for founding the

Culver Academies Culver Academies is a college preparatory boarding school located in Culver, Indiana, which is composed of three entities: Culver Military Academy (CMA) for boys, Culver Girls Academy (CGA), and the Culver Summer Schools and Camps (CSSC). Culve ...

Early life

Henry Harrison Culver was born near

London, Ohio London is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Ohio, United States. Located about southwest of the Ohio capital of Columbus, London was established in 1811 to serve as the county seat. The population was 10,279 at the 2020 census. ...

on August 9, 1840.FindAGrave
/ref> His father was John Milton and his mother, Lydia Howard Culver. He had five siblings.

Career

Culver started a

cooking range A kitchen stove, often called simply a stove or a cooker, is a kitchen appliance designed for the purpose of cooking food. Kitchen stoves rely on the application of direct heat for the cooking process and may also contain an oven, used for b ...

company with two of his brothers, Walter and Licius, which they incorporated in 1881 as the Wrought Iron Range Company in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. The company was very successful and Culver amassed a substantial fortune. After becoming ill, he retired in 1883 to the north shore of

Lake Maxinkuckee Lake Maxinkuckee is the second largest natural lake in the U.S. state of Indiana, covering . The Town of Culver, Indiana, in southwestern Marshall County is located on its northwestern edge. Lake Maxinkuckee has a maximum depth of 88 feet (27 m) ...

, close to his wife's childhood home.

Philanthropy

In 1894, Culver founded a college preparatory school on his property near Lake Maxinkuckee. It was modelled after

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

. It is now known as

Personal life and death

Culver married Emily Hand. They had two sons, Edwin Raymond Culver Sr, (1872-1930) and Bertram Beach Culver Sr. (1875-1959). He died on September 27, 1897.

References

1840 births 1897 deaths People from London, Ohio 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American philanthropists {{US-business-bio-1840s-stub