JC Campbell from the Western Reserve
James Calvin Campbell, of Mentor township, was born October 3, 1844, in Willoughby township, on the lake shore, in a log house near the West Plain school house. He is a son of Jeremiah and Sarah Ann (Reeve) Campbell. Sarah Ann Reeve was the eldest sister of Joel Reeve, lately deceased. Jeremiah was a son of John Campbell, a Revolutionary soldier, who died in Willoughby and is buried in Maple Grove cemetery. Jeremiah Campbell and his wife spent their lives on the farm, clearing it out of the big chestnut timber. He served twelve years as justice of the peace in Willoughby township. They moved to Mentor township, three-quarters of a mile east of their old home, and the next year Mrs. Campbell died. His second wife was Mrs. Dunbar, a widow, formerly Miss Lucina McEwen. who still lives, her residence being Anoka, Minnesota. Jeremiah Campbell is deceased.

J. C. Campbell is the sixth of ten children, four of whom survive, two sisters and one brother besides himself. He lived at home until his marriage, at the age of twenty-two years, to Marah Downing, sister of Sanford Downing, one and one-half years his senior. She died about twenty-five years ago, after they had spent eighteen years together. He lived a short time on his father's farm, which Mrs. Weed now owns, working it on shares for ten or twelve years, and then bought his present home, the L. D. Talbot farm. Mr. Talbot settled in the woods, building a log house and log barn; he moved to Michigan and died there. Mr. Campbell has 133 acres; the present house was built by Mr. Talbot in 1857, being a concrete house of octagonal shape. A journal called the Rural Xczv Yorker advocated that kind of a house, and Mr. Talbot supposed it would be cheaper, but found it cost about twice as much as if made of lumber. It is, however, very roomy and substantial. The farm has a half mile of beach along the lake.

Until ten years ago Mr. Campbell devoted his entire time to the cultivation and improvement of his farms, in which he met with good success. He also bought and sold farms. He was employed by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company to buy land for them, and closed a contract for some 700 acres extending three miles along the lake shore; it took about four years to close the contracts for this entire tract, and he was able to do so because it was not generally known who backed the enterprise. He has also been employed in a similar capacity by other roads, the Wabash and the Wheeling & Lake Erie buying rights-of-way. For the past three years he has given his attention to the purchase of several hundred acres of land for the Mahoning & Trumbull Water Company, on the east branch of the Mahoning river, between Newton Falls and Alliance, in a circle of villages and cities within thirty miles, contemplating a reservoir for supplying city water and for power development.

Though not seeking public office or political honors, Mr. Campbell takes a keen interest in whatever concerns the public welfare, and has served well in such positions as he has filled. He served six years as township trustee of Mentor, was elected county commissioner in 1896 and was appointed to fill a short term, making seven years of service. The bridge funds were overdrawn at this time, but soon the county levy was reduced. A fund was started to build a court house, and when he left the board the amount of the fund had reached nearly $100,000, and Mr. Campbell felt as much honored on account of having started the fund as though his name was chiseled on the front of the court house. He has sometimes served as delegate to the convention.

Mr. Campbell has four children, namely: James Jeremiah, a farmer of Mentor: Bryant Downing, unmarried and operating the home farm; Ethel C, wife of John W. Flickinger, editor and publisher of the Clyde Enterprise, of Clyde, Ohio ; and Everett Goodman, a farmer of Mentor.