Biographical Details
Date of Birth: March 21, 1825
Birth Location: Johnson County, IN, USA
Graduation Year(s): 1845
Degree(s) Earned: Bachelors
Date of Death: August 8, 1860
Death Location: Somonauk, IL, USA
John Alexander Campbell
Life Experience
John Alexander Campbell was educated in Bloomington, Indiana. After graduating from IU, he studied theology in the seminary of the United Presbyterian Church in Oxford, Ohio. He was licensed as a preacher of the Gospel in 1848 by the Indiana Presbytery. He represented Monroe County as a delegate at the Democratic Party Convention in 1849. His ministry took him across Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.
In 1853, Campbell took the post of principal of Pennsylvania’s new Dayton Union Academy, a Presbyterian school of 75-80 students, from its founder Adam Beck. He taught school in the chapel while the school building was still under construction. He was also a teacher in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. He pastored congregations in Putneyville, Pine Creek, Mount Vernon, and Fairview from 1854 to 1857, and the newly established Indiana settlement Butler (DeKalb County) from 1857 to 1859.
While filling a Presbyterian Synod appointment for the Somonauk Congregation in Illinois in 1860, Campbell died suddenly. His body was laid to rest in Bloomington, Indiana, at the White Oak Cemetery.
Interesting Anecdote
Campbell was ordained to preach by Bishop Ovid Butler on November 28, 1854, less than a year before North Western Christian University (now Butler University, named after him) opened its doors.
References
- Wylie
- Findagrave.com
- Wikipedia
- Indiana State Sentinel 05/05/1849
- Common Schools of Pennsylvania (1878) (Harrisburg, PA: Lane S. Hart, State Printer)
- James Brown Scouller (1881) Manual of the United Presbyterian Church of North America (Harrisburg, PA: Patriot Publishing Company)
- Jeremiah Zeamer (1905) Biographical Annals of Cumberland County (Chicago: Genealogical Publishing Co.)