MY RIVERSIDE CEMETERY TOMBSTONE
INSCRIPTIONS SCRAPBOOK
By Jonathan K. T. Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1992

CAMPBELL

(Page 16)

CAMPBELL LOT, NO. 296

In memory of
MAJOR WILLIAM CAMPBELL
of Galena, Illinois,
formerly of Nashville, Tenn.,
who departed this life at the residence
of his son in Jackson, Tenn..
January 11th 1842
Who was born in Wythe Co., Va.,
October 17th 1776

His many virtues are engraven
not upon this cold stone
but upon the hearts of his relatives
and numerous friends

John W. Campbell
Died
June 30, 1874
Aged 75

WHIG AND TRIUUNE, Jackson, July 4. 1874:

An Old Citizen Gone to His Rest         Mr. John V. Campbell, one of the oldest and most distinguished citizens of Jackson, died at his residence in the suburbs of the city on Tuesday last. With his death one of the last links in the golden chain that unites Jackson now, with Jackson past, is severed. His death was sudden and but a few days before the last sad hour, he was well and boastful of his health. He was born on the 1st day of May, 1799, at Lexington, Kentucky. While an infant, his parents moved to the Green River country and settled at Greenville, Christian county, Ky. He received his academical education at Hopkinsville, Ky., and graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.         Before he had completed his collegiate course his father moved to Nashville, to which place he returned and commenced the study of law. In 1827 he married Miss Jane E. Porter, daughter of the late Alexander Porter, one of the earliest citizens of Nashville. By this marriage he bad ten children, four of whom still survive him.         After the Legislature had chartered the Union Bank it was difficult to procure the services of persons of experience as bank officers, and as he, at the early age of nineteen, had been placed in charge of a bank in Kentucky, he was induced to abandon his profession and take charge of the Branch of the Union Bank at Jackson. He arrived in Jackson on the 4th day of July, 1833, when the Bank was organized with the late James Caruthers as President and John V. Campbell as Cashier. His family moved to Jackson in November 1833. In 1843 he attached himself to the Presbyterian Church and soon afterwards was elected one of the Elders, a position he continued to hold up to his death. He never took an active part in politics, always preferring the seclusion of private life and the companionship of his books to the wrangle and strife of a public career, but was always a zealous, unflinching Democrat of the Jeffersonian school. One remarkable trait in his character was that he was never known to abandon a cause or desert a friend. If he believed him honest and true he would stand by him to the very last.         Shortly after the Federal occupation of Jackson the Yankee soldiers commenced making depredations upon him. In the space of a few hours they burned houses, barns, mills and fencing on his plantation worth thousands of dollars, drove off his horses, mules and cattle, entered his smokehouse and stripped it of everything, until there was not provisions enough left on the place to feed the family, white and black, for twenty-four hours. . . .

 

JANE ELIZA
The wife of John H. CAMBELL
and daughter of Alex. Porter of Nashville
Born at Nashville July (?) 1807
Married June 13, 1827
Died at Jackson Dec. 2, 1849

As she had lived a most exemplary, intelligent & devoted CHRISTIAN so she died with that unshaken, living faith in her Saviour's love which deprived Death of his terror and enabled her to say Blessed Jesus, I will fear no evil for thy rod and thy staff. they will comfort me. Oh' what a great salvation.

(This epitaph is on the west side of her obelisk tombstone.)
Here lie the remains of JANE E. CAMPBELL, a woman whom, a wife possessing a surer, a more delicate moral sense, a Christian of a more strictly just, of a more beneficent disinterested disposition has never lived. Her heart was as large as the world. The loss of such a wife and mother, of such a daughter, sister and friend can /be fully estimated only by the infinite mind.

John W. Campbell married (2) Louisa Allen, April 27, 1852. She was born April 12, 1811 and died July 25, 1892.

 

Buried on the south slope near Riverside Drive:
AUNT BECCA
beloved Servant of
J. W. & Jane E. Campbell
Died Feb. 21. 1866
Aged 60 Yrs.
Also,
NED, her husband
Died in 1863
"I know that my Redeemer Liveth."

 

(Page 17)

Resolution of sympathy issued to his family, July 5, 1874. SESSION BOOK OF FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CNUPCH, Jackson, JUNE 1859-APRIL 1880, pages 116-121):

The death of Brother John W. Campbell, the oldest member of the Session, being announced by the pastor, the following paper was unanimously adopted & ordered to be spread upon the minutes. John W. Campbell, who has been for thirty-one years a Laborious member of this body, was born in the city of Lexington, Ky. on the 1st day of May A.D. 1799. While yet an infant his parents removed with him to Kentucky where the days of his childhood were spent. He received his academical education at the town of Hopkinsville, Ky & there layed the foundation of that ripe scholarship that distinguished him through life. He graduated at Dickinson College. Carlisle. Pa., while that institution was presided over by the venerable John N. Mason, D.D. During his stay in college, his father removed to the city of Nashville, which afterwards for a time he made his home. He read law in the office of Felix Grundy, but abandoned the profession soon after coming to the Bar. In 1827 he was united in marriage to Miss Jane E. Porter a lady of brilliant mind & pure heart, by whom he had ten children, five of whom still survive him. When the Union Bank was established in this place & he was appointed its cashier with the late James Caruthers as president. He arrived in this city on the 4th of July in 1833 & here spent the remainder of his days. In the year 1840 he made a public profession of his faith in Jesus Christ & united with the Presbyterian Church in the month of March, during the pastorate of Dr. A. A. Campbell. In 1843, he was elected and ordained a Ruling Elder which office he filled with very great acceptance till the day of his death. He maintained in every walk of life an unblemished character & has left behind him the record of a life of unsullied principle.         After an illness of only 3 days he gently fell asleep in Jesus on the 30th of June 1874, greatly lamented by the entire community, who mourn the death of one of our oldest & most distinguished citizens.

 

ALEX W. CAMPBELL
June 4, 1828
June 13, 1893
General in the C.S.A.
Kt. Templar, Kt of Pythias
Learned in Law, Literature
and Statesmanship
"Now. Lord, what is my
hope, truly my hope is
even in thee."

ANNE DIXON ALLEN
Wife of Gen. A. W. Campbell
Sept. 13, 1833
Mar. 30, 1916
"At the eventide
there shall be light
is my prayer. O, God."

GENERAL A. W. CAMPBELL
from an old print

 

GOODSPEED'S HISTORY OF TENNESSEE (MADISON COUNTY EDITION, 1887), p. 849:

Alexander W. Campbell Gen. Alexander W. Campbell, attorney at law, is the son of John W. and Jane E. (Porter) Campbell, and was born in Nashville June 4, 1828. His father was a native of Kentucky, and his mother of Tennessee, and in 1833 came to Jackson, Tenn., where Alexander W. was reared and educated. In the winter of 1847-48 he began the study of law under Judge A. W. O. Totten, and later attended the law school at Lebanon, from which institution he graduated in 1851, and the following year opened a law office in Jackson, and continued the practice until the war, when he was appointed, by Gov. Harris, assistant inspector-general of the provisional army of Tennessee, and as such mustered into the service the greater portion of the West Tennessee troops. Upon the transfer of the provisional army to the service of the Confederate Government, Gen. Campbell became colonel of the Twenty-third Regiment, under Gen. B. F. Cheatham, and in 1865 was promoted to a brigadier-general and placed in the command of Gen. Forrest in charge of the brigade which bore his name, retaining said command until the surrender. After the war Gen. Campbell resumed the practice of law in Jackson, and has thus been occupied until the present, having met with more than ordinary success. For the past quarter of a century he has been one of the foremost Democrats and leading practitioners of this portion of the State. January 12, 1852, his marriage with Miss Anne D., daughter of the distinguished lawyer, Dixon Allen, of Nashville, was solemnized, and to this union six children have been born, four of whom are now living: Mrs. Anne A. McIntosh, of Memphis; John W. ; Katie F. and Alexander W. Gen. Campbell is a Knight Templar in Masonry, a member of the K. of P. and A. O. U. W. fraternities, and himself and wife are Episcopalians in religious belief.

 

 

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