Knox County TN Archives Biographies.....Camp, Eldad C. 1839 - 
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Author: Will T. Hale

   MAJOR ELDAD C. CAMP. During the last half century it is doubtful if any

citizen of Knoxville has been more distinguished for influence and success in

business and the law and for all-around disinterested service in behalf of the

city's welfare, than Major Camp. A lawyer who rode circuit in half a dozen

eastern counties in the years following the war, a former United States district

attorney, and for many years active in the development of the mineral resources

of East Tennessee, he has had a career of unusual achievement and success. In

his capacity as a leading business man and through the different business and

civic organizations of which he is a member he has rendered invaluable service

for his home city and tributary country.



   Eldad Cicero Camp was born near Mt. Vernon in Knox county, Ohio, August 1,

1839. There were thirteen children in the family, ten of them boys. He was a

namesake of his father, who, after a service of seventy-three years as deacon

and elder in the Presbyterian church, died in 1894 at the age of ninety-one

years and six months. The maiden name of the mother was Minerva M. Hinman.



   Until nearly fifteen years of age his life was spent on a farm, during which

time he attended only the common schools. He then spent two years in higher

grade schools at Chesterville and Martinsville, Ohio, and from April, 1857 to

1860, taught school at and near Richmond, Kentucky. During the fall and winter

of 1860-61 he was a teacher at Platte City, Missouri. During this period of

teaching he was also reading law when opportunity offered, and as aids to his

development always took part in the debating societies and musical

entertainments in the different communities where he was located.



   His early practice was very irregular owing to the war, for he and six

brothers took more or less active part until late in 1864. On February 18, 1865,

he arrived at Knoxville, in company with General Joseph Cooper. While enroute

for home on a furlough he had met the general, and from Cincinnati they came

down the river by boat, and from Nashville rode with General Thomas in his

private car as far as Knoxville. This was the beginning of Major Camp's

residence in this city, which has been uninterrupted during forty-eight years.



   For years his law practice was drawn from Sevier, Jefferson, Grayson, Cooke,

Campbell, Blount and Claiborne counties. In 1869, without any solicitation on

his part, he was included among the first appointees made by President Grant

after his election, and became United States district attorney for the eastern

district of Tennessee. To the duties of that office almost his entire time was

devoted during his term of four years, and he made an excellent record. One of

his most important official achievements was the placing of the E. T. & V. and

the E. T., V. & G. Railroads in the hands of a receiver. In this, Stanley

Matthews, since and at the time of his death a justice of the supreme court of

the United States, was his assistant, and while engaged in this litigation they

were both, on motion of the assistant attorney-general of the United States,

admitted to the bar of the federal supreme court on November 4, 1869.



   The experience gained in traveling over the country from 1860 to 1869 and in

his contact with different classes of people during his term of office convinced

Major Camp that he could hardly find a more desirable country than eastern

Tennessee, from every substantial point of reasoning, and especially with regard

to its mineral wealth. Already in« 1868 he had acquired some interest in coal

lands, and he has since continued his investments in this direction and in real

estate, and has limited his practice of law to the requirements of his more

important commercial and industrial interests. He is president of the Coal Creek

Coal Company and of other mining properties in Tennessee and Virginia. At

Knoxville he is a director of the Third National Bank, and has valuable real

estate and other investments in and about this city. He was one of the

organizers of the Lincoln Memorial University and was formerly treasurer of the

medical department of that institution at Knoxville.



   In the long period of his residence at Knoxville, Major Camp has been both a

witness and participant in many of the undertakings and events which have made

history. The city has in the meantime grown from about five thousand to fifty

thousand population, and its churches and schools and other improvements have

kept pace with this progress. He was a witness of the 1867 flood, the worst in

the annals of Knoxville. The recent destructive Gay street fire laid bare

grounds where in earlier days he was an interested spectator of ball games. He

saw a mob hang a man to a tree which once stood on the site now occupied by the

office of the Imperial Hotel. He was also an innocent bystander during some of

the exhibitions of splendid marksmanship by enterprising citizens when in

personal combat. By taking the risk upon himself he has saved the lives of

several citizens, and has singly withstood the anger and threatened violence of

large bodies of strikers. During the constant and steady growth of the city he

has aided every enterprise of every nature, whether industrial, charitable,

religious or educational, designed for the improvement of city and county. An

interested and influential participant in politics, he has never sought an

office for himself. He is one of the oldest active members of the Chamber of

Commerce, and has long been identified with the Knoxville and State Bar

Associations, and on numerous occasions has represented these bodies in some

formal or business way at distances ranging from a hundred to thirty-five

hundred miles from Knoxville. At the Sound Money convention held in Indianapolis

he was honored with the post of vice-president, and in his opinion he never

witnessed a finer looking body of men than those assembled in front of the

stage. At a recent meeting of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress Major

Camp was again honored by being chosen as vice-president for the state.



   That Knoxville and east Tennessee abounds in more of minerals, good climate

and variety of soil products, than any other section of its size, is a fact

which no inhabitant of this region, whether native born or otherwise, could

gainsay. For this reason, and taking the state as a whole, it is Major Camp's

opinion that Tennessee should always stand high in the column of states. Looking

toward a future realization, he declares the important needs of the state and

the people at present are: (1) To guard well admissions to the bar, condemning

improper practice by so-called lawyers. (2) To bring assurance to the people of

a free ballot and a fair count. (3) Doing away with small politicians who cater

to the baser class to gain personal aims at the expense of decency and honesty.

And, with special reference to his own city, he urges that Knoxville should do

at the north end of Gay street, what- it has done at the south end, and remove

the hill, which is a nuisance greeting the eye of every visitor, besides being a

source of much danger and damage to the citizens; and enforcement of the law of

temperance and morality.



Additional Comments:
From:



A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in

commerce, industry and modern activities

by Will T. Hale

Chicago:  Lewis Pub. Co.,  1913



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