Campbell, James B.

Born: 1799-10-15 Maury County, Tennessee

Died: 1873-01-03 Gallatin County, Montana

In 1825, Campbell migrated to Vandalia, Illinois, where he served as clerk in the auditor's office. In November 1828, he married Sarah A. Kain in Clinton County, Illinois. He moved to the northern part of the state and became a businessman and land speculator. He settled in Ottawa, where he was treasurer of the Board of Canal Commissioners, and served as one of the first county commissioners of La Salle County, elected in 1831. In the fall of 1833, he purchased land granted by the state to two girls who had been captured by Native Americans, and he located the property on the east side of the Illinois River in 1834, naming the town Juliet, for his daughter. He laid out the original town and sold lots in June 1834, although he never lived there. The town became Joliet in 1845 by act of the Illinois General Assembly. Campbell was also an early landowner in Chicago and one of the incorporators of the Chicago Hydraulic Company in 1836, and he moved to Galena, Illinois, in that same year. In 1852, he moved with his wife and seven children to Missouri, where he remained for ten years. In 1862, he moved to Montana, stopping temporarily in several places before settling in Gallatin County, where he established a ranch.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Clinton County, 6 November 1828, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Progressive Men of the State of Montana (Chicago: A. W. Bowen, n.d.), 1096-97; U. J. Hoffman, History of La Salle County, Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1906), 97, 149; The History of Will County, Illinois (Chicago: William Le Baron, Jr., 1878), 274, 380; Weston A. Goodspeed and Daniel D. Healy, eds., History of Cook County Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1909), 1:120; A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1885), 1:137, 2:568.