Biographical Sketch of Charles W. Campbell, St. Joseph, Buchanan 
County, MO

>From "History of Buchanan County, Missouri, Published 1881, St. Joseph
Steam Printing Company, Printers, Binders, Etc., St. Joseph, Missouri.
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Charles W. Campbell was born in Winchester, Virginia, February 10,
1827.  His father, Thomas B. Campbell, also a native of Virginia,
was by occupation a goldsmith.  The subject of this sketch was one
of five children, two of whom were boys.  He received an excellent
education in a private academy of his native town, and embarked in
mercantile pursuits, selling goods first in his native city, for a
period of about three years, to 1846, when he started for the West,
and landed in Louisville, Kentucky; from there he came to St. Joseph,
Missouri in February, 1849.  His first business experience in this,
then embryo city, was in the capacity of clerk for Donnell, Saxton
& Duval, dry goods merchants.  He remained in this house for some
time, when, in partnership with William T. Duval, he opened a general
stock of merchandise in St. Joseph.  He remained in this business 
about three years.  About 1855, he moved to Rock House Prairie, in
Buchanan County, where he engaged in general merchandise, first in
partnership with Duval, and afterwards alone.  He also, about this
period, purchased and operated a farm in the neighborhood of his 
store.  He subsequently received in partnership in his mercantile
business his brother, T. Ed Campbell, a well known business man of
St. Joseph, and now of the wholesale dry goods house of R.L. McDonald
& Co.  In 1857, he traded his stock of merchandise for a plantation
in Clinton County.  In 1861, being a heavy loser by change of times 
at the breaking out of the war, his plantation was disposed of, and
he returned to St. Joseph, where he engaged in business with Tootle,
Fairleigh & Co., wholesale dry goods dealers, and as an active part-
ner with Tootle, Craig & Co., wholesale dry goods dealers, and sub-
sequently, in the same capacity with Tootle, Hosea & Co., in the same
line of business, of which firm he is now an active member.  In 1854,
Charles W. Campbell married Miss Sarah Jones, daughter of Harvey
Jones, an old settler of Buchanan County, and niece of Robert W. 
Donnell.  The result of this union was eight children, seven sons and
one daughter.  Of these, all but two sons are living.  Mr. Campbell
has been, all his life, an active public spirited citizen, and for
several years past an influential member of the City Council.  His
effort has ever been to promote the interests of the city of his
adoption.  Among the number of beneficial acts of which he is the
author, are the ordinances changing the city warrants to what are
known as ones and twos, creating a circulating medium, which at once
caused the floating warrants of the city to advance from eighty-five,
interest bearing, to par, non-interest.  As chairman of the Water
Works Committee, he was influential and active in securing to the
city its admirable system of Gravitation Water Works.  He is also,
chairman of the City Finance Committee, successfully engaged, in 
connection with the Mayor and the committee, in exchanging the bonded
indebtedness of the city, bearing interest from six to ten percent,
into twenty-year four percent bonds.  This was, at one time, deemed
impracticable, but nearly $1,000,000 have been exchanged, and the
matter is now pronounced a complete success.  In politics, since the
death of the old Whig party, Mr. Campbell has been, and is now, a
staunch Democrat, and, as such, is frequently called to preside over
its city and county conventions and central committees.

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