When someone mentions Daniel Boone or Simon Kenton, images of rugged individuals come to mind. But when the name John Campbell comes up, it’s difficult to put his image into focus.

Campbell was a successful land owner who helped found two major cities-Louisville and Pittsburgh. He was also a soldier, a state legislator, and one of the drafters of Kentucky’s first constitution. But Campbell evidently did not have the charisma that gave Boone and Kenton larger than life status. Kenton and Boone also had families to carry on their names, while Campbell never married.

Campbell was born in Ireland, the son of Allen Campbell. John came to America as a young man and became a trader on the frontier. He also worked as an agent in western Pennsylvania for the United Companies of Illinois and Wabash, which supplied provisions for English outpost in the Ohio River valley. It was as a trader that Campbell ended up at Fort Pitt in the mid-1770s. Fort Pitt, a British post constructed in 1758, eventually became Pittsburgh. Campbell laid out four blocks of that city in 1764.

In 1773, Campbell and a business partner, Dr. John Connolly secured 4000 acres in Kentucky. Included in that acreage was much of what is Louisville. In the spring of 1777 Campbell was living at Fort Pitt when he found himself in the difficult position of choosing between loyalty to England or to the revolutionary cause. British officials offered a grant of 200 acres to any many who joined them in putting down the rebellion. Campbell was listed among those to be approached with the offer. He was expected to side with the British. Also on the list were Simon Girty and Alexander McKee.

Girty and McKee took up the English offer and for many years plagued the Kentucky frontier, leading Indian raids on settlements. Campbell cast his lot with the rebels. He later wrote a friend that he hoped he would have the "pleasure of informing you soon that there is not a British soldier, except prisoners, in any part of the continent America."

Campbell became a justice of the peace in the Pittsburgh area and a colonel in the American militia. As a colonel, Campbell joined a group of explorers led by Colonel David Rogers. They were sent on a secret mission to New Orleans by Virginia Governor Patrick Henry. At the time, the United States was attempting to gain French financial and military support against England. The Americans made it safely to New Orleans, but on their way back to Fort Pitt on October 22, 1779, they were sidetracked on an Ohio River sandbar near what is now Dayton.

An account of the trip written by Colonel George Rogers Clark said that the group included about 80 Americans and a French "gentleman named Perault from St. Louis." Other travelers included nine men who had joined the convoy in New Orleans and were working their passage back to Fort Pitt, seven prisoners taken the winter before in the American attack at Vincennes and an unidentified woman. The prisoners were destined for the American prison at Williamsburg, Virginia.

The cargo they protected included 40 bales of dry goods, rum, fuses, "all the Continental bills in {St. Louis} and a chest of hard specie". The Continental bills were the American dollars of that time and the hard specie was probably an assortment of French and Spanish coins. Clark’s report listed the value of the cargo at 2 million livres {French coin}. Because the value of livre varied so much, it is difficult to translate that amount into American dollars.

Clark’s report said the boats stopped at the sandbar to chase eight to 10 Indians who were harassing them from the shore. When the boats docked, however, they found themselves overwhelmed by a large number of Indians and British soldiers. Campbell wrote that among the Indians were Senecas, Wyandot, Delawares, and Shawnee. All three boats were captured, about 60 men were taken prisoner and the rest were killed. Campbell wrote that he, two other men and the woman surrendered to a British soldier-a Sgt. Samuel Chapman-hoping that they would be treated better by the British than by the Indians.

A British letter later noted that Girty was part of the Indian party that had attacked Campbell and Rogers, and that McKee was partly responsible for dividing up the captured supplies among the Indian tribes. A Kentucky State Journal story in 1889 stated that among the Americans who fought in that battle was Capt. Robert Benham, who suffered two broken thigh bones. During his recovery, Benham constructed the first cabin in Campbell County at the mouth of the Licking River.

Most of the American prisoners were taken to Detroit, which was the British headquarters in the Kentucky-Ohio area. But Campbell was turned over to the Shawnee and taken to one of their villages in Ohio. Campbell was evidently held as a prisoner of war and as a hostage. Indians in the 1700s often kept prisoners as replacements for Indian warriors killed in battle or as ransom bait. In a letter written soon after his capture, Campbell asked for help from Capt. Richard Beringer Lernoult, British commander at Detroit. Campbell said he was not being harmed or restrained but was not allowed to leave.

He wrote that he wished "to be considered as a prisoner to British troops and hope for your interposition to have me delivered up at Detroit as soon as possible that my sufferings in captivity may be amongst a people of the same language, religion and manners and whom till within these few years I have looked upon in a different light from that of enemies". Campbell’s letter was answered, but he remained a captive for more than three years.

While Campbell was being held prisoner, a move was afoot involving the land Campbell and Connolly, a British loyalist, owned in Kentucky. The treaty that ended the war included a clause in which the United States pledged to try to help restore the property and goods confiscated from the Tories during the war. In most cases, however, this was not done. Many Tories were forced to move to Canada or to England. As a result of Connolly’s decision to remain loyal to the king, the Virginia Assembly voted in May 1780 to revoke his claim to Kentucky land. That action paved the way for others to begin developing a town, which became Louisville.

Unfortunately for the town’s developers, no one had taken into account Campbell’s half ownership in the land. The action of the Virginia Assembly did not include his claim. Campbell sued the town organizers after he was freed by the Indians. The eventual settlement paid to Campbell was $4,091, and he was given an IOU for another $753. To pay him, town organizers had to sell all the public lands that had been set aside in the city except for the court house square and cemetery.

Campbell then settled into the new community. In 1783, he opened a tobacco warehouse at Shippingport, which marked the beginning of the tobacco industry in Louisville. Two years later, Campbell also started operating the first public ferries on the Ohio River at Louisville. Campbell was named a Jefferson County representative to the first state convention held in Danville in 1792. Campbell also was named a state senator from Jefferson County to the first session of the state legislature. In 1798 he was named speaker of the Kentucky Senate. Campbell also became a trustee at Transylvania Seminary.

Campbell was serving in the legislature in 1794 when a decision was made to carve out a new Northern Kentucky county. That county was formed out of parts of Mason, Scott and Harrison counties, and named "Campbell County" in his honor. Whether Campbell actually lived in Northern Kentucky is not clear, but one account says that he lived to an "old age" in Newport. Campbell died in October 1799. He died a wealthy man. His estate included land in Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Return to Pieces of the Past