Completed to December 25, 1885
EATON, OHIO
I, Josiah Campbell, was born February 18th, 1810, in Baltimore Hundred, Sussex County, State of Delaware.
I was the youngest of nine children born to my parents, William and Mary Campbell. There were five sons and four daughters. Naming then in the order of their birth we have: Elizabeth, Ebe, William, Kesiah, Mary, Samuel, John, Lovey' and myself. I was not born in luxury. My father owned a small farm about one hundred acres of very poor sandy land. We barely made a living off of it and would not have done this but for the help of quite a number of hives of bees. The honey and wax of the bees brought him in more money than the sales of the products of the farm.
The manner of our living at my father's house in the first quarter of this century would not suit, I am sure, the people of Ohio in this the last quarter. We then knew no better and therefore were content with our lot and were not striving to gain a fortune so much as to merely make a comfortable living.
The advantages for gaining an education were very meager during my youth. We only had schooling during two months of the year and then it was not accompanied with any method. Each scholar studied and recited in any book that he or she might possess, whether that be a history or the writings of one of the authors of the day. About the only book I had to study when I went to school was a Bible.
When not in school my time was employed in various ways. One of the chief means of a livelihood with the people of our neighborhood was the getting out of timber in the cedar swamps. Perhaps some of my posterity, who read these lines, may wonder what this getting out of timber in the cedar, or cypress, swamps as it is sometimes called, means. I will tell you. There are great sections of the state of Delaware which are swamps. Here for centuries great cedar trees have grown up and fallen down and others in time have grown over the fallen timber. And the fallen timber is completely covered by decaying vegetation. By removing this soil large timber can be found buried. This timber is in a state of perfect preservation and since it is of such good quality it pays a good profit to raise it above ground and work it up. Many people find employment in unearthing this and getting it ready for market. Our family worked in the swamp a great deal. The older ones would do the hard work and we boys would carry the clap boards to the dry land or corduroy roads. You ask why we did not drive to where they were gotten out? This would have been impossible for the ground would not bear up any kind of a beast of burden, it was so mirey.
I will relate in this connection an incident which will illustrate a trait of my character. When going to school or to work in the swamp we would always take our dinners as we went for the whole day. I almost always, I might say, invariable, ate my dinner before commencing my work in the morning and then went hungry the rest of the day. This was sometimes pretty hard on me, but there was that irresistible desire in me, that when I had anything about me to eat I could not refrain from nibbling at it until all gone.
When describing the swamps I ought to have mentioned that they were filled with bushes and briers so thick that you could get thru them only where there were paths. On this account they make good hiding places for wild animals. They contained quite a number of bears. It was not an unfrequent occurrence to hear our hogs when they were attacked by a bear. If the hog squealed and continued to do so, getting weaker and weaker and finally ceasing, we knew that bear had made a successful attack on the hog and was then dining sumptuously on pork at our expense, and probably dealing it out to two or three cubs. They were not always successful. Sometimes they would seize the hog by the back of the neck, but in its struggle for life and liberty the hog would tear away. When this was the case we would hear one loud squeal and then all would be still. Then we would wait for the coming up of the hogs, and we would invariably find that one of them was more or less torn on the back of the neck. You ask why a hog could outrun a bear? I will tell you. The hog would tear loose and then strike out under the bushes and briers. A bear when in pursuit of game will not be content with creeping under the bushes, but goes over the top. Hence it can not make as rapid a race as the hog and can not recapture it.
There are other things that in my boyhood days were of greater terror to me than bear-- I refer to ghosts and witches. The mass of the people then, and not a few at the present time, believed in ghosts and all kinds of superstitious notions. I will give you an instance of my belief in witches and wizards, now and reserve the ghost stories for future pages. Fishing has always been one of the chief means of livelihood and one of the most popular sports of the Delaware people. I well remember one of my fishing companions of my youth. He was an old man by the name of William Godfrey. I suppose from the manner he walked he must have had hip disease in early life. He also had a running sore at the hip joint. It was said he was a wizard and that a witch had shot him in the hip with a silver bullet, which was the cause of the sore and lameness. I then believed all this. He worked in the swamp all week, but every Saturday he went fishing. He invariably came past father's house and took me along with him. I was never a very successful angler, but he was. It seemed that whenever he cast in his hook he could get fish. I would watch him and when he would get to pulling out fish I would slip up and drop my hook in beside his. But it seemed that the fish would at once cease biting. Then he would say, "Well, Josiah, you may fish here, I will hunt another place." He would go off about one hundred yards and would soon be pulling the fish out again. No sooner would I see it than I would pick up my bucket and fishing rod and break for him and drop in. We would keep this up all day. He never became vexed. When night came and we had to go home he always had his bucket full of fish, mine had but few in it. But he would divide and we would both go home happy. It was then said that he bewitched his bait, was the reason the fish would bite for him.
I well remember the first money that I earned. Uncle Arthur McCabe hired me to strip corn-- blades for him at 6-1/4 cents per day. I worked at this two days and then he proposed that I hull walnuts on shares. Well do I remember those two large walnut trees loaded with walnuts, how I gathered them in baskets and carried them to a hard walk near by and poured them on the hard ground and then with an apple pounder hulled them out. When I sit and write these lines those acts of mine come up before me like a panorama and I am carried off in my old age to the scenes of my youth again. They are pleasant times to revert to. Could I then have looked forward, as I now look back, I could have avoided many things that I have met in my life that have been unpleasant, and have done many little acts that would have made the backward view more thickly studded with shining land-marks.
In writing of my walnut hulling I made mention of the apple-pounder. It is not my intention to write these lines in a mystified way. Many words we then used are now obsolete; so it is with a great deal of the machinery for doing things. The apple pounder was a pestle. When we made cider we could not drive to a mill and in a half hour be going home with the cider. I will describe our mill. It was a large and deep trough, hewed out of a tree. The apples were put in here and with a pestle we pounded them until they were thoroughly mashed. Then they were put in a basket frame-work and pressed as at the present day. When I was at Delaware on a visit with my wife in 1881, we visited the site of my early childhood and there in an old apple tree still standing, dead and covered with lichens, was a mortice which my father made in my boyhood days. In it the lever of the cider press worked and I well remember when I helped make cider there.
Lovey being next oldest than I we naturally played together a great deal. And like other children we were up to our innocent tricks. We were once sent out to pick up and pile corn stalks. This did not much suit our youthful fancy. We put our wits to work to find out what plan we could pursue to get out of doing it. We soon struck upon a plan. We gathered quite a pile of stalks and set fire to them. Then standing near the fire we got our faces as hot as we could and then ran to the house and told mother we were very sick and had a high fever. If she did not believe it she could feel our faces and see. She did so and of course found them hot. We were put to bed at once and kept there during the rest of the day. This was harder on us than the picking of the stalks. I firmly believe that mother understood our trick and took this plan for punishment.
I will give one more of my youthful exploits. About three hundred yards from my father's house stood three trees, one an oak of considerable size, the other a hickory tree. They grew near each other and the limbs of the hickory tree intermingled with the lower limbs of the oak in such a way that one could climb the hickory and then from that to the oak. In the fall of the year when the acorns and the hickory nuts were good to eat, the squirrels would come from the swamp, about two hundred yards distant, to get the nuts. Many a time have I watched and when I saw them go up the trees, I would run as hard as I could. When I would arrive at the trees I would at once climb the hickory tree and from that to the oak, making the squirrel ascend before me. When he got to the extreme topmost branches, with me as far as the limbs would bear me, I would shake him off. Down would go the squirrel. When he struck the sand it would so stun him that he could not at once get up and run off. As soon as I would see the squirrel fall I would commence my downward descent as rapidly as I could possibly go. But by the time I would reach the ground and get to my game it would have recovered sufficiently from the shock to run and then away we would go to see which one was the best at running. The squirrel nine times out of ten came out winner and was secure in the swamp. I can but look back and shudder to think of ascending and descending those trees so rapidly as I then did. I am sure of one thing and that is, these old limbs would not be so trusty now for that kind of amusement as they were in those days.
In the spring of 1826 my brother William moved west, intending to locate in Illinois. When he passed through Eaton, he stopped to visit old acquaintances and finally concluded to remain in Preble County. Letters received at home from him relative to the vast country he had traveled over, the richness of the soil, etc., stimulated me to such a pitch I could no longer remain contented until I had seen the west. My brother-in-law, Warren McCabe and family, were finally persuaded to emigrate to Ohio. This was, I thought, my golden opportunity to see the west. So I packed my carpet bag and left my father's house with them on April 7th, 1827. L.T. McCabe also made one of our company on this trip. I can not describe the many little incidents of our journey. And could I do it, they would often seem so ridiculous, that anyone who may hereafter read these lines would not believe them. To one who had never been twenty miles from home every thing was new and interesting. Our traveling was in a two- horse covered wagon, the women and children riding and the men walking, and was therefore necessarily slow. We came by the old National road. At Wheeling, Virginia, Bro. Warren and family and myself embarked on boat and made the trip down river to Cincinnati. L.T. McCabe drove the wagon through to Eaton. From Cincinnati to Eaton the family came by hack and brother and I footed it. We arrived at Bro. William's, May 2nd, about two weeks before L.T. McCabe did with the wagon, being twenty-five days on the road.
After remaining with Bro. William and other acquaintances awhile, a party of us consisting of Bro. William, L.T. McCabe, Nathan and John Sellers, Thomas Flemming and myself, concluded we would like to see more of the western country. We left Eaton in August and walked westward through Indiana. The country was new and wild then, not thickly settled as at the present, the houses consisted of log cabins, and where many of the large towns and cities are now were then collections of but a few cabins. Although the country was wild and the mansions consisted of cabins, still the dwellers therein had hugh hearts. We had a very pleasant trip. To one who had never seen prairies, they were quite a sight and made a lasting impression on my memory. They were entirely different from any country I had ever seen. The city of Indianapolis, now one of the greatest cities of the west with its many railroads and thousands of people was then a very small village with only one grocery and that had a bakery attached. While in Indianapolis we visited an old Delaware friend, Elisha Taylor, who had emigrated there some years before. The country then was full of Indians. And since they were friendly to us and we to them I have no exploits with the red men to chronicle. We returned to Eaton in the same manner we departed therefrom i. e. on foot.
After I returned to Eaton I became aware that it would soon be necessary for me to have a new hat or go bare-headed. To obtain sufficient means to make the purchase, I worked for James Crawford in digging a mill race. He gave me 1-1/4 bushels of wheat for a day's work. I worked until I had 11-1/4 bushels and then Bro. William hauled it to Eaton to John Acton, the hatter. He took it all in exchange for one hat. It was a large, heavy, bell-crown. It would have made four hats of the present day in weight and amount of material in it.
On the first of October, in the same year, I concluded I would rather winter at my father's house than anywhere else. So I strapped my knap-sack, weighing 18 pounds to my back and started on foot to return to Delaware. I walked the entire distance to Baltimore, Md., in 13 days, averaging 43 miles per day. In doing this I had no time for idling, but stuck right at my task all the time.
My bank account was not very large then. I had only twelve dollars to my name to pay my way from Eaton to Delaware. In order to economize I ate but one warm meal per day; this was breakfast. For this I paid twenty-five cents. For dinner and supper I ate cold victuals for which I paid twelve and a half cents each meal. These served me just as well as warm victuals, for being tired and hungry I could eat then with a relish and sleep sound at nights. If I could eat and sleep now as I then did, it seems to me I would be happy. But I remember that time works a steady disintegration on the vitality of every man as he advances beyond forty-five years of age, and I am no exception to this law and must abide by it. I will give the reader one incident of my trip. When between Wheeling, Va., and Baltimore, Md., I joined company with three men on horse back who had been west. I stayed four nights with them. On the fifth they did not overtake me and I saw no more of them. The way I got ahead of them was in this way. I would arise early in the morning and get off on my journey and gain quite a distance on them. And then by the time they would get their horses put away and fed I would be up with them. I relate this instance to show that even for a long distance a healthy man can out travel a horse.
I arrived in Baltimore on Sunday morning and at once engaged passage across the bay on a schooner, for which I paid three dollars. Owing to the loading and unloading of freight, we remained at Baltimore five days before leaving. I finally reached home and had just seventy-five cents left to my financial account. It is needless to say that all at home were glad to see me and that I was glad to be again safely housed beneath the parental roof.
Ere winter had passed I became discontented with my home in Delaware. Things were too tame there for me. I had a taste of something better and I longed to be once more in the western country. After a great deal of talk about the west with its abundance of rich soil and other advantages, and no small amount of persuading on my part, I finally got my parents in the notion to emigrate, accompanied by two of my brothers and one sister. Arrangements were made during the winter and in the spring we were about ready to start, when a sad accident happened. Father and mother went to town to dispose of some lumber and wax. When on the way home, mother fell from the wagon. The wheel ran over her head and killed her instantly. This was quite a trial on all of us. With bright prospects looming up in the west, to be deprived on the eve of departure, of one that was most dear to all of us was more than we could stand without murmuring. But we had to leave her behind and never will I forget how sad the departure was.
It took about four weeks for the wagon to come through from Delaware. They were heavily loaded and traveling was necessarily slow. I walked from Delaware to Wheeling, Va., and there took a boat for Cincinnati. From there I walked to Eaton.
When we coming over the mountains another incident happened to mar the happiness of the journey. Father and I were asleep in our wagon, when about three o'clock in the morning we were awakened by cries of distress coming from some one near us. We at once arose and found they came from John's wagon. They had with them a baby a few months old. Tired and exhausted by the fatigues of traveling they had accidentally smothered the child during the night and awoke to find it cold and dead. We made a box and buried it by the side of the road in the mountains. No man at the present day knows the spot where the babe was buried. But when the resurrection morn shall come, He who made the heavens and the earth, will bring it forth to shine forever in heaven.
My father made his home with brother William. The rest of the family at once purchased homes and commenced doing for themselves. I engaged myself to learn the boot and shoe trade to William Gillan, Englishman at Eaton. After an apprenticeship of two years, I bought him out and commenced business for myself. This was really the beginning of my business career. I continued in this business two years. I then sold out and went into a dry goods store as a clerk. After serving a clerkship of one year I started on my own responsibility a drug and grocery store combined. I continued in this until January 1st, 1834.
While in the boot and shoe manufacturing I made a pair of shoes for Miss Sarah C. Curry, daughter of Judge Wm. Curry. Little did I think when measuring and fitting her feet for a pair of shoes that they would in the future tread life's pathway in company with my own. Our courtship commenced while I was clerking in the dry goods store. After the lapse of two years, filled with the pleasant dreams of our future happiness, we were married on March 18th, 1834, Esquire Stephens officiating.
In the following autumn I started a boot and shoe store with the manufacturing of shoes and tanning of hides attached. This being the first business that I was engaged in on my own responsibility after my marriage, I of course put forth my best efforts. I was assisted in this by my wife. She helped in binding and filling the shoes. We worked hard at this for several years, at times putting in as much as 18 hours out of the 24 in hard work. On the 13th of April, 1836, our first child was born, a girl. I sold out my shoe and manufacturing store in 1840. I then entered into the drug and grocery business again. In this I continued four years and then sold out and returned to the tanning and manufacturing business. While tanning a lot of hides my tanner damaged the leather and they were not suitable for shoes, but were good for the manufacture of harness. As there was about $3,000 worth of them, I concluded to have them worked up into harness and did so. I continued in the tanning and manufacturing business three years and then sold out.
I then started a variety store and in this I did well. On February 14th, 1845, my wife and I joined the Methodist church, which was the crowning act of my varied life and did much toward making us happy during the trials of after years. While in the variety store the project of building a railroad from Richmond to Hamilton was agitated. In February, 1848, I was elected treasurer and director of the road. The cholera in 1849 delayed the work on the road for a time. Being the treasurer, it devolved upon me to collect and disburse the funds. From my election in 1848 to the completion of the road in 1852, I collected and paid out about $1,000,000. Upon the completion of the railroad in 1852 I was elected superintendent. I continued to serve in this capacity until February, 1853, when becoming dissatisfied with railroading, I abandoned it and sold my stock. I also sold my variety store and sought other fields in which to invest my money.
I then moved to Cincinnati and engaged in the manufacture of lard oil with R.A. Whetstone. After about 18 months I sold out my interest with Whetstone and engaged with Henry Gooch in the same business. While with Gooch we found it hard work rolling all our lard up to the third story of our building where some of the presses were located. I set my wits to work to devise an easier plan. Next door to us was a man who used a steam engine for power to run his machinery. I made arrangements with him to furnish the power for me and then constructed an elevator on my own idea. It was not as perfect a one as are in use at the present day, but it served our purpose admirably. This was the first elevator in Cincinnati, and was quite a novelty in the community. After 18 months I sold out to Gooch and quit the lard oil business.
In 1856 I formed a partnership with T.H. Foulds in the commission and grain business. We then built the warehouse and grain elevator at Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton railroad depot. I quit the commission business in 1858. I then went into partnership with G.H. Eidson. We opened a wholesale leather store on Main street, Cincinnati. In 1859 I built the store room opposite the court house on Main street in Eaton. In 1861 I sold out my interest in the stock to G.H. Eidson.
In 1862 I was appointed the first revenue collector for Preble County. I continued to fill this office to the best of my ability until Andy Johnson came into power, when I was discharged and another appointed. In 1862 I was appointed provost marshal and served in this capacity about one year.
In the fall of 1866 I engaged with E.W. McGuire in the manufacturing of plows. Our factory was located near the depot at Eaton. This was the greatest financial failure I ever made in choosing a business. We were in the business eight months and came out $16,000 poorer than we went in.
In 1868 I went to Covington, Ky., and bought the Trumpet Flour Mills, for which I paid $11,000. I ran these mills eight years successfully and then sold out to David Keifer for $12,000. I then invested $18,000 in the Preble County bank and as I then supposed retired from business. But such was not the case. Some time afterward there was offered for sale the steam flour mill at Eaton. Having a grandson, Frank Campbell, just budding into manhood and being desirous that he have some business, I purchased it, intending that Frank should run it when he had finished his education. But that was not the will of Him who rules all things. Frank died before he commenced his life as a miller. I then ran the mill for 4 years and traded it for a farm three miles south of Eaton at a loss of $4,000. I still own the farm, (Dec. 1885) but can take no part in the running of it.
This is a partial history of my life as I now remember it. There are many incidents that would relieve the monotony of reading it that occurred during my business life. But my memory is not as good as it was years ago and even if it was I could not now take up the time of those who peruse these lines with the reading of them.
In the first of the preceding pages I promised to give a ghost story before I finished.
I never thought how superstitious the people in Delaware were until I had come out west and mingled with other people. In my earlier life we would not think of going out after night without the dread of ghosts. And when we would pass a graveyard we would always shut our eyes and run with all our might. Before my father came west he built an addition to his house. No one near us could run a stairway. So he sent several miles for a man who could. When the man was on the way he took sick and died. And those stairs, even to the present day, are said to be haunted. Many queer noises have been heard about them, such as hammering, sawing etc. I believed in these stories as much as anyone when I lived in Delaware.
I have a good joke on myself and wife and will now relate it.
When on a visit to Delaware in recent years we were walking along the road talking about the wonderful ghost stories that used to be told and believed. We were passing by a graveyard and I told her that right here was the place where the ghosts had been seen and where we would formerly have to go with our eyes shut. When all at once there was a shaking of the bushes at the side of the road and the rustling sound. It came on to us so suddenly that I believe we were both inwardly inclined to think that a ghost was right upon us. My wife would never admit this. We could at first see nothing, but upon further investigation we found it to be a little colored girl, who had come out to get some huckleberry bushes to make a broom to sweep yards with, I could give many other stories, but the foregoing will suffice to illustrate the credulousness of the people.
I have now given up all business that will in any way fatigue this worn out body. And am trying to live as comfortably as it is possible that I can with the companion of my former years. It will soon be 52 years since we both put our hands to the oars of our little bark and pledged our hearts to be ever true to each other. In the sailing down the stream of life we have encountered many hidden snags and sandbars that we did not know, in our planning we were going to strike. But by mutual consultation and a steady pull on the oars we were able to keep our bark aright and move onward. After sailing 11 years we took a Pilot who guided us by many dangerous places and only let us run aground when we would not consult Him as to how we should pull. But now when the voyage of life is about ended, and we find that we are both in the boat yet, we can but give thanks to Him who is the giver of all good gifts and praise Him for His wonderful kindness and watchfulness. And while we are lying in the harbor waiting for the Master to come and call us to the haven of eternal rest, we would unite our voices in giving our advice to those who read.
Take on this Pilot at an early age. Listen to all his commands and give heed to them as laid down in the book of life--the Bible.
Be honest and upright in all your business transactions, always dealing with a fellow-man as you would that he should deal with you in like circumstances. And then when you come to cast anchor in the harbor in the close of life you amy do it in confidence, believing that all will be well and that you have a safe anchorage.
I can not now think of anything more to say that would be of interest to anyone. But should my life be extended yet for great length of time, I might think of some incident to record and shall take pleasure in doing it and add it to these pages as a supplement. And now, if by writing this autobiography I have in any way gratified my posterity or any one who may be interested in me, I am fully satisfied.
Maria Louise, April 13, 1836, in Eaton.
William Curry, January 4, 1839, in Eaton.
Sarah Ann, August 22, 1841, in Eaton.
Joseph Sevier, January 1, 1844, in Eaton.
Mary Catherine, April 4, 1846, in Eaton.
Emma Amanda, March 15, 1849, in Eaton.
Sarah Curry, January 3, 1854, in Cincinnati
Josiah Campbell died January 20, 1890.
