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SAMUEL McCOLLY CAMPBELL has been a permanent resident of Vinton since 1854 and has been almost continuously active in business affairs throughout that period except during the Civil war, when he was one of Benton county's quota at the front.
He was born at Zionsville, Boone county, Indiana, December 7, 1841, a son of William M. and Nancy (Bousenberg) Campbell. William M. Campbell was born in Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, January 25, 1795, moved to Indiana when a young man and was there married, June 23, 1839, to Nancy Bousenberg. She was born in Indiana, September 27, 1815. They moved in 1854 to Vinton, where the father died March 7, 1874, and the mother on June 13, 1896. William M. Campbell was a farmer in Indiana, but after moving to Vinton kept a hotel, known as the Black Bear House, on the site now occupied by the postoffice. He finally sold this pioneer hotel. He and his wife were parents of: S. M.; Americas, mentioned elsewhere; and Mary E., now the wife of Alvin P. Rose of Vinton, and she was born in Indiana September 13, 1849.
Samuel M. Campbell, who was thirteen years old on moving to Vinton, began work when a boy in a meat market, and followed this line of occupation in all about fourteen years. This was interrupted, however, by his career as a soldier. He enlisted, in September, 1861, in Company G, Fifth Iowa Infantry, and served till discharged at St. Louis, January 14, 1864, on account of a wound. He participated in eight major engagements of the great campaigns in the Mississippi valley during the first two years of the war, including the battles of New Madrid, Iuka, Corinth (both battles), Jackson, Mississippi, Champion Hill, and the siege of Vicksburg. During the latter he received a gunshot wound in the right arm, and was sent to the hospital on May 22, 1863, where he remained until finally discharged from service. His wound has been a constant annoyance and trouble to him through the years since the war.
However, he has been an active business man, For eight years he was street commissioner of Vinton, and for a number of years has been a cement construction contractor. He has contracted for a great amount of grading work and has constructed many miles of Vinton streets and sidewalks. For the past two years he has been associated in business with George A. Biebesheimer, under the firm name of Campbell & Biebesheimer. Physically he is a finely proportioned man, and in his army discharge papers is described as being six feet two inches tall. In politics he is a Republican and is a member of P. M. Coder Post No. 98, G. A. R.
Mr. Campbell married Miss Mina Josephine Ellis. She was born in Clay county, Missouri, and in childhood was brought to Benton county by her parents, Benjamin F. and Mary E. (Myers) Ellis. Her father was killed in the battle of Champion's Hill, May 16, 1863, while a member of the Twenty-eighth Iowa Infantry. The Ellis family lived for a time in Linn county, Iowa, but returned to Benton county in 1872. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell have three children: Margaret B., who was born June 18, 1881, and reared and educated in Vinton, married M. R. Minton, who is a cigar salesman and a merchant at Wichita, Kansas. Harold Harrison, who was born in 1888, is a graduate of Tilford Academy and is now teaching school in Walford, this county. Oscar Edgar, who was born in 1890, is a student of electrical engineering at the University of Iowa.
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