The subject of this sketch was one of the very early settlers of Scott County. He was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, June 30, 1802, and when very young his parents moved to Jefferson County, Indiana, where he obtained his education and grew to manhood. His advantages for an education were very meager, so far as schools were concerned, and what he obtained was by his own efforts and outside of school houses.
In 1836 he disposed of his interests in Indiana and emigrated to Scott County and settled in Buffalo Township, where he improved a farm. He resided there until the spring of 1841, when he moved to Blue Grass Township.
In 1840 he erected one of the first frame houses in Blue Grass Township. Mr. Campbell was exceedingly fond of hunting and outdoor sports, and was often a member of the hunting parties which roamed over Eastern Iowa during the pioneer days. On one of these tours, in company with the late Willard Burrows, they came near perishing for want of provisions and the extreme cold to which they were subjected , being overtaken by a severe snow storm while a long distance from any settlement.
In 1844 he was elected a delegate to the first constitutional convention, which assembled at Iowa City, on the first Monday of October of that year.
In early days Mr. Campbell made frequent trips to the pineries of Wisconsin during the winter months for the purpose of getting out logs, which he sawed into lumber and rafted and floated down the river in the spring. During the spring of 1850 in company with L. S. Black man and another man he started overland for California. When in camp at Council Bluffs the emigrants formed themselves into a protective company and adopted rules to be enforced during their overland journey. These rules did not suit Mr. Campbell and his comrades divided the provisions and teams, and a horse and wagon fell to his lot. Ile then purchased a span of mules and started alone. He walked a greater part of the way, sleeping on the ground beneath his wagon of nights, his faithful dog being his only guard and companion. He made the trip in unusually quick time. He returned home during the fall of that year with his son, George R., who had gone overland to California in 1849. In 1853 he equipped a train of five teams, and in company with his daughter Mary (who was the wife of Ross McCloud, who had previously gone to California), and about twenty others with whom he had contracted to furnish transportation for the journey, started overland a second time for California. He was taken sick while en route and died on Green river, about forty miles from Salt Lake City, where he was buried on the twenty-second of July. His daughter Mary took charge of the train of teams and successfully conducted it to its destination.
February 17, 1822, he was united in marriage to Lucy R. Foster and eleven children were born to them. J. F. Campbell, their eldest son, was for many years a prominent farmer of Scott County and now lives in Davenport.
BIOGRAPHIES