Luther was born in 1813 in Brunswick County, North Carolina, which is on the coast just north of the South Carolina border. At the age of 21, he moved with his parents to the Missouri Beat area of Pike County, Alabama, which is in the southeastern part of the state. They took four weeks by ox wagon to make the trek through South Carolina, Georgia and then into Alabama and down to Pike County. A year later, Luther was serving as a Private in the Creek Indian War in Capt. Darby's Company of Alabama volunteers, for which he later received a pension for his service. This war took place between 1836 and 1837 and was a conflict between the US Army working along side Alabama and Georgia militias and a faction of the Creek Nation seeking redress for land being taken from them. White speculators and squatters had swarmed into the Creek Nation's land in Alabama and bought up or even fraudulently stole land from them. The situation got out of control despite the efforts of the US government and the flood of white immigrants could not be stopped. This war was the last battle by parts of the Creek Nation to resist their removal to the west and was the start of the Trail of Tears to remove native Americans to Oklahoma. Luther bought his land through purchases from the US Land Office in the 1850's under the April 1820 Act of Congress for the sale of public lands. There are records for his purchases in Pike County dated Dec 1851 (40 acres), May 1854 (39 acres), Sept 1854 (40 acres) and Nov 1858 (80 acres). It is only assume that this land was probably once owned by the Creek Nation, but was made available by the US government.
In Pike County on 2 July 1840, Luther married Margaret Crauswell, who was just 16 years old, while Luther was 26. They had 10 children, one of which died in infancy and 2 that died in early adulthood. Luther was not only a farmer, but was also listed as a teacher. Luther and Margaret lived in that part of Pike County that later in 1866 became Bullock County. In September of 1868 Luther sold his land in Bullock County and bought new acreage in West Sayre in Jefferson County, Alabama. Jefferson County is further north in the middle of Alabama & home to the city of Birmingham. In West Sayre he and his 2 grown sons cleared the land, built a log cabin and planted a crop. His wife and their 5 daughters remained in Bullock County until their new home was ready. By the 1870 Jefferson County census, the family is listed back together. In 1875 Luther purchased 79 more acres there, again through the US Land Office. By the 1880 census, all the children but the two youngest have married and left the homestead. In their later years, Luther and Margaret probably lived with one of their children, as they both died in Walker County just northwest of Jefferson. Margaret died in 1889 at age 64 and Luther died 9 years later at age 84. Both are buried in the Sellers Cemetery near Sumiton in Walker County, Alabama.
The Sellers Family Bible correctly cites Luther's death date as 21 January 1898 as opposed to the year on his grave marker of 1897. A relative, William Phillips Jr., related a story handed down about this. William said that his grandfather went with Asa Sellers, one of Luther's sons, to pick up the headstone and it was noted then that it was engraved wrong, but it was too late to change it.