Biographical Details
Date of Birth: 1815
Birth Location: Washington, PA, USA
Graduation Year(s): 1835
Degree(s) Earned: Bachelors
Date of Death: March 28, 1882
Death Location: Jacksonville, FL, USA
Parker Campbell, Jr.
Life Experience
Parker Campbell, Jr., was the son and namesake of an eminent Pennsylvania man, who was a leading lawyer, trustee, church founder, and contractor for the original National Road. He attended Washington College and traveled to Indiana, where he received his Bachelor’s degree from Indiana College (now IU) in 1835. He received his Master’s degree in 1838, and made his living in various enterprises.
Campbell Jr. was a glassmaker in Wheeling, [West] Virginia. He was also a banker, broker, and insurance salesman in Richmond, Virginia. During the Civil War, he was a staff officer stationed in Tennessee, who helped barter for food supplies to feed the Confederate Army. After the war, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Insurance & Savings Company of Virginia. In his last years, he was a sugarcane farmer in Louisiana. He died in Jacksonville, Florida, and was buried in Richmond, Virginia.
Marriage and Family
Campbell Jr. married Isabel Sprigg in 1844. They had a son and daughter in 1846 and 1847, respectively.
Interesting Anecdote
In 1870, Campbell Jr. purchased the infamous Libby Prison from its original owners and kept it from being torn down, after President Lincoln’s earnest request in 1865 that it be kept intact as a memorial of the horrors of war. However, Campbell Jr. eventually had to sell it. It was ultimately disassembled by subsequent owners and lost from history.
References
- Wylie
- Findagrave.com
- Wikipedia
- www.artcirclelibrary.info/reference/civilwar
- www.chartiers.com/crumrine/twp-b-washington.html
- www.civilwarrichmond.com
- Daily Dispatch (Virginia Chronicle) 05/13/1868
- Roberto Alonzo Brock (1888) Virginia and Virginians (Richmond: H. H. Hardesty)
- (1902) The Scotch-Irish in America (The Scotch-Irish Society of America)
- Indiana University Alumni Quarterly #7 (1920)
- Robert E. L. Krick (2003) Staff Officers in Gray: A Biographical Register (University of North Carolina Press)