San Joaquin County
Biographies
WESTLEY PEARSON HUNT CAMPBELL
WESTLEY PEARSON HUNT
CAMPBELL, a rancher of Dent Township, residing in Stockton, was born in
Trenton, New Jersey, October 3, 1825, a son of John Rumfield and Ann (Foster)
Campbell. The mother, born January 16, 1786, was married in Burlington, New
Jersey, December 25, 1806, and died December 31, 1827. The father, born June 7,
1785, was a tanner and currier, and also the owner of the first pottery in
Trenton, New Jersey. Soon after the death of his wife he moved to Blue Ball,
New Jersey, where he was married to a second wife and carried on a pottery. He
also lived there, at what was called Middletown Point, New Jersey, about thirty
miles from New York city, where he carried on a hotel and pottery until his
death January 16, 1834. Grandfather Andrew Campbell was born April 11, 1747, in
Angushire, Scotland. A member of the historic family of that name, after some
political trouble or rebellion, escaped to America, settling in Maryland. He
fought in the Revolutionary war in the Colonial army, and lived to an advanced
age.
W. P. H. Campbell received some schooling
for a few years before the death of his father, and after that event for one
year in Alton, Illinois, whither he had been taken by the kindness of an older
brother, John A., who settled in that neighborhood. This brother, born January
14, 1812, had learned the trade of potter with his father, moved to southern
Illinois after his marriage and became a farmer, and eventually a minister of
the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1838 the subject of our sketch went to work
as helper on a farm near Bunker Hill, Illinois, continuing a few years in that
labor, when he changed his employment to steam boating on the rivers Ohio,
Mississippi and Missouri. Thus occupied a few years more, he went to St. Louis
about 1843 to learn the trade of carriage-smith. In 1847 he engaged as teamster
in the quartermaster department of the army, and served in that capacity during
the Mexican war. He is not technically a veteran of that war, though he and his
civilian comrades did some military service in protecting their supply trains,
and were often exposed to the dangers of war, the enemy being less considerate
in the treatment of such guards than of the regular troops. Returning in 1848,
Mr. Campbell went to work at his trade in Providence, Boone County, Missouri,
and at the same time he assisted his brother Andrew, the inventor of a machine
for making pill-boxes, cutting them out of the solid wood, at the rate of
twenty-five a minute, at Providence, Missouri. (For a sketch of Andrew
Campbell, since becoming celebrated as the inventor of the printing press known
by his name, see Cyclopedia of American Biography.) From Providence W. P. H.
Campbell returned to St. Louis, working at his trade in that city for a time
and then in Troy, Illinois, and again at St. Louis. Here he once more hired as
a teamster in a supply train from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, which reached
the Kansas river, but was ordered back by the military. Again, in St. Louis, he
opened a shop on his own account, in partnership with another, but the venture
proved short-lived, and he went to Linnens, Missouri, in 1852, and was for a
while a partner with his brother Andrew under the style of Campbell Brothers.
He was married, October 23, 1852, to Miss
Mary A. Ogan, a native of Boone County, Missouri, a daughter of John M. and
Lucy (Harris) Ogan. The mother, a native of Kentucky, died in 1877, in her
sixty-ninth year; the father, a native of Boone County, Missouri, is living in
southern Oregon at the age of seventy-eight. Grandfather John Ogan died in
middle life, and his wife, Mary (Douglass) Ogan, was over sixty. They had five
sons and three daughters who grew to maturity, several of whom lived to be
seventy or more. Grandmother Anna (Garland) Harris, died about middle age, but
her husband, Higginson Harris, lived to be ninety-two.
Mr. Campbell, with his wife, her parents
and others, left Missouri for California, April 14, 1853, coming across the
plains and settling in San Jose valley. There he worked at his trade for a time
and took up some land. In 1862 he bought land near Warm Springs, Alameda
County, and went to farming. In 1864 he came to this county and bought the Lone
Tree House, with 200 acres, on the road of that name in Dent Township, and
afterward 120 acres adjoining. He conducted the hotel until early in the ‘70’s,
and the ranch until December 10, 1883, when he moved to this city.
Mr. and Mrs. Campbell have five living
children: Annie, born October 11, 1853, was married to Oscar E. Wright, now of
Farmington, July 3, 1873. Mary Frances, born November 9, 1855, married
September 7, 1870, James Gardenshire, has two children (Thomas and Mattie
Gardenshire) and was again married, in 1889, to Henry Schaffer, of this city.
John Westley, born December 15, 1857, now a farmer of Stanislaus County,
residing about six miles from Oakdale, married Miss Sarah Grider, November 1,
1882, and has three children: Winfield, Clarence A., and Cora C. Amanda, born
March 6, 1860, married May 1, 1879, John C. Grider, a native of Nevada, but now
of this city. Alfred, born February 13, 1862, married October 27, 1886, Miss
Maud Thompson, a native of this State, now residing on the Lone Tree ranch, and
has one child--Lela.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 534-536. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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