Campbell, Robert E
From Lane Co Oregon
Portrait & Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley Oregon
by Chapman (Publishing Company, 1903. p. 1454.)
ROBERT E. CAMPBELL
One of the highly treasured possessions of Robert E. Campbell is the log house which he constructed in the height of his enthusiasm for his adopted state in 1852, and which still weathers the heat of summer and the cold of winter as stanch as it did when a little household gathered beneath its timbers, and earnestly laid their plans for the future. Strange to relate, the roof, which usually has the shortest life, has never known a successor, but with its supports remains an example of handiwork which has proved substantial in the extreme, and useful beyond compare. Not far from the pioneer house, which was 17x24 feet in dimensions, and contained two rooms, is the more modern structure now occupied by Mr. Campbell, and which is one of the really fine rural homes in which a prosperous country abounds. The contrasts thus presented are borne out in the life of the owner, to whom naught has come save through the exertions of his hands and brain, and to the retention of which he owes frugality, good judgment and untiring industry. In LaFayette county, Mo., where he was born September 4, 1830, Mr. Campbell married, in 1849, Ruth Campbell, one child being born to them on the farm upon which they settled. With his cousin, Alexander Kinb, Mr. Campbell purchased a team of four yoke of oxen, and two cows, and started across the plains in a wagon, leaving home in April, and arriving in Lane county, Ore., in October, 1851. Sometime during the following winter he located a claim of three hundred and twenty acres a mile from Springfield and two miles from Eugene on the Willamette river, the following year moving to his present home where he erected the log house above mentioned. In 1876 he removed to this part of the donation claim, and with the exception of intervals spent in other parts of the state, has made this his place of residence. For nine months Mr. Campbell lived in Wasco county, and during the summer of 1854 he mined in Jackson county, this state. In 1852 he hauled goods from Portland to Springfield, and in 1859 he and his cousin built a flatboat and took thirty-five tons of flour to Portland, receiving in payment $2.75 per barrel. His farm is mostly prairie land, and all of the improvements are due to his enterprise and progressiveness. General farming, stock and grain-raising are engaged in on an extensive scale, and in all of these departments Mr. Campbell has achieved success, having made a practical and scientific study of the occupation to which his life has been devoted.
The first wife of Mr. Campbell died in 1858, leaving two children, of whom Harvey, who crossed the plains with them in 1851, died in 1895, and Eliza is the wife of Mr. Anderson, and lives on the home place. For a second wife Mr. Campbell married in the fall of 1859, Martha Delgell, who died in 1865, her only child having died in infancy. The present Mrs. Campbell, married in 1867, was formerly Rebecca Hutchinson, and is the mother of two sons, George E. and Emmet E., both of whom live on the home place. Mr. Campbell is a Democrat, but being a quiet and unostentatious man, has never identified himself with office-seeking. Possessing shrewd business judgment, honesty of purpose, and a kindly interest in the success of his fellow, agriculturists, Mr. Campbell is justly popular in his neighborhood, towards the development of which he has so earnestly striven.
