"Portrait & Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley Oregon."  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.

     
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in October 2008 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.