Polk Co. IAGenWeb

CAMPBELL, DR. JAMES - One of the pioneer settlers of Polk county, was born in Gallia county, Ohio, on the eleventh day of June, 1815. He was raised a farmer and desiring to avail himself of the opportunities offered in the then Far West, he journeyed, on horseback, and so thinly settled was the country through which he came that in traveling west from Terra Haute, Indiana, he only saw one house in a day's ride, and from Virginia, in Louisa county to Mt. Pleasant, in Henry county, there was not a house. In 1839 he settled in Van Buren county, and in March, 1846, came to this county and purchased a stock of sutler's goods and opened out in the old guard-house, near where Third and Vine streets now are, and thus he became one of the first if not the first merchant in the town. He held the office of treasurer and recorder, and has seen the city grow from soldiers' barracks to the largest city in the State. He has been twice married; first to Miss Calista Hill on the eighth day of July, 1841; she was a native of Ohio, and died on the eighth day of June, 1858. On the twenty-second day of July, 1863, he married Barbary Keltz, a native of Zanesville, Ohio. He has five children: Milton, Emaline (now Mrs. Hathaway of California), John, Sarah (now Mrs. Bird), and Albert.