- WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL. An agricultural life seems favorable
to longevity, and poets have
- always celebrated the peace of mind it brings and the serene
and noble age to which it leads. Rock township has a number of
venerable farmers whose peaceful and useful lives carry out all
that has ever been said about the beauty of a career that has
kept close to the soil. Among them the gentleman who is the subject
of this article may be prominently mentioned. In early life he
was familiar with the workshops and streets of the city, but
nearly thirty years ago he wisely decided to spend his last years
on the farm, and it has been a hospitable haven to him. He owns
a valuable and highly cultivated farm in Section 4, Rock township,
Rock county, and is generally recognized as one of the leading
citizens of that part of the county.
- Mr. CAMPBELL was born in Boston, Mass., May 22, 1830, and
is a son of Jeremiah and
- Nancy (HAWES) CAMPBELL, natives of Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, respectively. They had six sons and three daughters,
six of whom are now living: Lovina, widow of Charles GIBBS, of
Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Jeremiah R. of Jacksonville, Fla.; William
H., our subject; Charles, of Boston; Sarah, wife of Eugene MILLIKIN,
of Providence, R.I.; and George, of Chelsea, Mass. Jeremiah CAMPBELL
was a sea-faring man in early life, and later kept a restaurant
in Quincy Market, Boston. His last business occupation was that
of a wood and coal merchant. He died in Chelsea, Mass., in 1872,
at the advanced age of eighty-two years, while his wife passed
away in 1875, at the age of seventy-five. They were members of
the Congregational Church, in which he was a deacon. His father,
Jeremiah CAMPBELL, was of Scottish descent, though a native of
Massachusetts, and reared a large family. He was a blacksmith,
and lived to be over ninety years of age. The father of Nancy
HAWES, who was a native of New Hampshire, died in middle life.
He also reared a large family.
- William H. CAMPBELL was reared in Boston, and received a
good education in the common
- schools. When he reached manhood he was a painter for a time,
and in 1861 he enlisted in Company D, 17th Mass. V.I., and served
three years, participating in some of the bloodiest scenes of
the war, among them the first battle of Bull Run and the Atlanta
campaign; he was also on the coast, with Butler, in the battle
of Kingston, Goldsboro and others. After the war he came West
to Chicago, and lived in that city about four years, working
in the railroad shops of the Illinois Central and the Rock Island
railroads. In 1872 he came to Rock county, Wis., and located
in Rock township, buying forty acres in Section 9, where he lived
until 1897. That year he removed to his present home in Section
4, and is now the owner of a farm of 280 acres, as desirable
a tract of land as may be found anywhere in the Northwest.
- On Jan. 31, 1866, Mr. CAMPBELL was untied in marriage with
Miss Elizabeth MURRAY, who
- was born Aug. 15, 1836. They have had two children: George,
born Oct. 3, 1867; and William H., born Jan. 22, 1869. On June
22, 1897, George married Theresa McCLUNE, who was born Feb. 15,
1866, and they have had two children - Etta May (deceased) and
Alice Elizabeth (born May 27, 1900). William is unmarried, and
with his brother is engaged in the cultivation of the home farm.
Mr. CAMPBELL belongs to W. H. Sargent Post, No. 20, G.A.R. He
is a Republican in politics. All his life he has been an active
and pushing business man, and since he came to the farm he has
devoted much time to stock raising, directing his attention largely
to Durham cattle.
- Mrs. CAMPBELL came to this country from her native land,
Ireland, when quite a young girl, and
- found a home in Boston, where she lived a number of years,
and where she married. She is a member of the Catholic Church.
Her parents, Michael and Elizabeth (MURPHEY) MURRAY, had three
children: Martin (deceased), Elizabeth (Mrs. CAMPBELL), and John
(of Ireland).
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c)1901, pp. 824-825.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|