Campbell Station was for many years a
frontier fort and was nearer than any other to the Cherokee Indians,
and at the time the station was established these Indians were hostile
and were engaged in almost constant warefare [sic] against the
few settlers who at that time braved the dangers of the wilderness to
establish homes. It was here that Captain David Campbell made
his home and defended his home from savage Indians. He was a strong,
rugged, patriotic man, a typical pioneer of the class who laid the
broad foundation upon which the commonwealths of this great country
were established. Honest and just in all of his dealings, courageous,
patriotic and self-reliant, he was greatly honored by all who knew
him. It is well, therefore, that we should know something of the man
in whose honor we have assembled here today.
"The first Campbell of whom we have been able to find any
authentic data, from whom our hero descended, is the great grandfather
of Capt. David Campbell. He was Alexander Campbell, whose home
was in Scotland, and his wife was Mary Byers. To escape
religious persecution, he and his wife went to Ireland, hoping to find
there freedom from tyranny, but they were doomed to disappointment.
They finally decided to emigrate to the English colonies in America,
and they settled in Virginia. They had seven children, the oldest of
whom was David Campbell, who married Jane Cunningham, and the
result of this union was four children, the eldest of whom was William
Campbell, who married Mary Ellison.
"Capt. David Campbell, whose memory we honor today, was the
youngest child of William Campbell and his wife Mary Ellison, and was
born in Augusta County, Virginia, in August, 1753.
"I have spoken only hurriedly of the direct descent of Capt.
David Campbell, but it is entirely proper to say that so far as we
know, every other member of the Campbell family took an active and
honorable part in the early colonial and Indian wars. By the time
David Campbell was 20 years old he had accumulated something, a
sufficient sum to invest in a farm near Abingdon, Virginia. Soon after
this he met his cousin, Margaret Campbell, a daughter of his
mother's half-sister, and in 1774 they were married.
"Throughout his young manhood he participated in a number of
expeditions against the Indians, and in 1774, the year of his
marriage, he took part in the battle of Point Pleasant. He was also,
in the year 1776, in the battle of Long Island Flats. He was a captain
in the colonial and continental armies and took an honorable part in
the battle of King's mountain.
"About the year 1782, David Campbell, with his family, moved from
Abingdon, Va., to Washington County, Tennessee. He remained there,
however, only a year, and then moved to Strawberry Plains, where he
had purchased a tract of land. He also owned a large tract in Greene
County, Tennessee, granted him for his services during the
Revolutionary war. He remained at Strawberry Plains until the year
1785 when he removed to this spot, where he built a station, which
subsequently became known as Campbell station, and constituted a
strong hold against the Indians of the section. It is related of him,
and it seems to be well authenticated, that upon one occasion, when
leading his men against the Indians, he came to an Indian village
occupied at that time only by women and children, the men being off on
some marauding expedition. Some of his men insisted upon retaliating
for the outrages which they and their people had suffered, by
slaughtering the women and children. This David Campbell forbade, but
one of the men, particularly unruly and revengeful, raised his rifle
and fired, but not before Campbell had struck his gun upwards and
deflected the shot, so that the young woman, Lucy Fields by
name, and the daughter of a prominent Indian, was unhurt. As a result
of this act of magnanimity he was forever after held in high esteem by
a large number of Cherokee Indians, and it is related that thereafter
many of them refused to take part in any attack against Campbell's
station.
Many Descendants
"I have referred thus briefly to
some of the incidents in the life of David Campbell in order
that we may be able to fix in our minds who he was. He was, aside from
the historical interest which attaches to his long and honorable
career, both as a soldier and pioneer, an important factor in the
building of a great state. It is natural, there, that there should be
a keen interest locally in his personality, as very many of the well
known families of this section of the state are among his direct or
collateral descendants, among these being the Campbells, McClungs,
Cowans, Humes, Ramseys and others.
"It is perhaps known to all of you that the first railroad built
in this section of the state was about the middle of the last century,
and in fact up until a considerable period after the Civil war we had
only the one line of railway, which is now a part of the
Southern Railway system. The result was that all of this mountainous
section was more or less inaccessible, and that resulted in many
inter-marriages among the families who were then there, and there is
perhaps no part of the United States where there are larger numbers of
people related by blood to their immediate neighbors.
"It may be interesting to say that about this time there arrived
upon the scene an interesting and charming woman, a cousin of David
Campbell's, who was known to the older members present in this
assemblage as `Grandma Ramsey,' and she did her part in making
most all of us first cousins.
