Family Histories of Coleman County, Texas

Henry Campbell
by Thomas H. Campbell

From A History of Coleman County and Its People, 1985 
edited by Judia and Ralph Terry, and Vena Bob Gates - used by permission
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      Henry Campbell was born in Burnet County, February 12, 1867, the oldest son of Samuel Hardesty and Sarah Ann (King) Campbell.  In 1894, he, along with a bachelor uncle, Tom King, visited Coleman County; on August 4, 1894, he purchased 140 acres of land situated on Hay Creek in the northwest corner of the J. A. H. Cleveland Survey No. 495, from J. N. Plummer.  Tom bought eighty acres of land a quarter of a mile east of his nephew's land.  The R.V. Cupps land lay between the two places.

     In the fall of 1895, Henry was employed to teach the Leedy School (popularly known as Live Oak).  He boarded at the J. E. McClure home.  The next year he was employed to teach the Leedy School again, and this time, he boarded in the Thomas Kirkpatrick home, which was nearer the school.  Here he became acquainted with Bell Kirkpatrick, whom he later married.  He purchased sixty more acres of land in 1897, which gave him a rectangular piece of land five-eighths of a mile long and half a mile wide.

     In the same year, his father, Samuel H., came up from Burnet County and purchased 120 acres of land to the south of Henry's land.  The same year another uncle, John B. King, purchased land which cornered with the Henry Campbell land on the southeast.  The John King family lived here until the fall of 1910, when they moved to Haskell County.  Another uncle, R. P. King, came to Santa Anna shortly after the turn of the century and operated a bakery for several years.  He and his family moved to San Diego, California, in the fall of 1911.  Also, an aunt, Margaret King, who married Sam Glasscock, lived in ‹Coleman County at various times.  A granddaughter of the Glasscocks, Mrs. Bill Lowry, still lives in Santa Anna (see Robert Martin Lowe).  Tom King lived in and near Santa Anna until about 1916, when he went to California.  He returned to Texas in 1917 and died in Burnet County in about 1919.

     In the fall of 1897, Henry Campbell was employed to teach the Cleveland School.  His contract indicates he was paid $50.00 per month for six months.  On May 29, 1898, he and Bell Kirkpatrick were married at the bride's home. (See Kirkpatrick).  Henry and Bell lived in Santa Anna the first winter of their marriage while he taught the Mayo School north of town.  With that exception, they lived on the farm on Hay Creek until December, 1919, when they moved to a 40-acre farm two miles west of Santa Anna purchased from W. M. Bell.  The move was made to make it easier for their son, Thomas, to attend Santa Anna High School.  They continued to live at this place until December 1948, when they moved to town to be nearer a doctor.  Bell Campbell died in March, 1951, following which Henry went to live with his son in McKenzie, Tennessee.

     It should be noted that in 1900, S. H., Henry's father, decided to relocate and purchased a farm of 145 acres on Mukewater Creek about two and a half miles east of Henry's place and in the southeast  Martinez Survey.  Henry then bought his father's land which adjoined his own on the south, which increased his holdings to 320 acres.  This land is still owned by his son, Thomas.

     In 1899, Henry's brother, John moved to Coleman County.  After farming with his father and teaching school for a while, he studied veterinary medicine and became a veterinarian.  He and his wife had two daughters, Ila, who died in 1924 at the age of twenty-five, and May, who married John Wallace, son of a Methodist minister, and now lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  In 1917, following their father's death, Henry bought John's interest in the land on Mukewater, while John in turn, purchased the eighty acres on Hay Creek from his uncle, Tom King.  The land on Mukewater is now owned by Joe Nell Reynolds, a granddaughter of Henry.

     Henry was a member of the Santa Anna Cumberland Presbyterian Church.  He was made a ruling elder in his church in 1906 and was faithful to his church throughout his adult life.  After teaching ten terms of school, he gave himself to farming and stock raising.  He retired from farming when he was about seventy years of age.  He died at Milan, Tennessee, November 8, 1963, and was buried beside his wife in Santa Anna.

     Two sons were born to Henry and Bell Campbell, the first dying at birth.  The other, Thomas Hardesty, graduated from Santa Anna High School in 1923 and attended Daniel Baker College in Brownwood three years.  He began studying for the ministry and went to Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee, his senior year; that was in the fall of 1926.  Following graduation from the
seminary, he spent several years in home mission work and as pastor of small churches in Texas and Louisiana.  In January, 1944, he began teaching in the Cumberland Presbyterian Theological Seminary, then located on the campus of Bethel.  In 1964, he moved with the Seminary to Memphis, Tennessee, where the institution was renamed Memphis Theological Seminary.  He retired in the summer of 1973.  Thomas married Nellie McClellan at Lubbock, December 16, 1928.  She died November 8, 1933, leaving a daughter, Jo Nell, now Mrs. J. S. Reynolds.  On June 20, 1935, Thomas married Margaret Estes at Ralls.  They had three sons: Samuel Henry, Thomas Dishman and Paul David.  Thomas and Margaret now live in Harrison, Arkansas.

(Images to be added)

Henry, Thomas and Bell Campbell


 
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