JAMES CAMPBELL

Dr. John J. Dickey Diary, Fleming County, Ky.  Recorded in the 1870's and beyond.
The following interview was made at Forked Mouth, Ky on July 22, 1898.

James Campbell:
I was born in Perry County, in Campbell's Bend, August 12, 1822.  My father was Francis Campbell, he was born on Walkers Creek in North Caroline, a tributary of New River.  They could roll a hogshead of tobacco to Charleston North Carolina in a day.  He was born May 15, 1800, he died Jan 8, 1893.  He was well preserved. My grandfather was John Campbell, he was born in North Carolina also, his wife was a Couch.  The Campbells and Couches came from the same part of the state.In 1806 a large number of families in that region thought of immigrating to Kentucky.Not willing to take their families into an unknown country, they selected the two men, Austin Couch and Charles Francis, two choice men, unmarried.  they filled  their knapsacks, took their flintlock rifles and full of determination to accomplish the mission on which they were sent, they started on foot to explore the New  Eldorado. They came through Pound Gap, and striking the headwaters of the Kentucky River, they followed the north fork to Boones borough, thence to Lexington and returned the same route, reaching home the same season.  They reported a land of plenty.  They said there was everything to eat but nothing to  wear.  It was a land flowing with milk and honey.  The streams abounded in fish, the woods were full of deer, bear, turkey, buffalo and elk.  filled with the flaming report, my grandfather and his family, his brother William and his family, started the following spring.  They were large families, they started for Lexington but  stopped at Campbell's Bend on the north fork of the Kentucky River, in what is now Perry County. They found four acres of land cleared at that point and  concluded to make a crop and remain over a year.  My grandfather bought nine horses, his brother ten, they bought their cattle also, some were sick on the way and this was one of the reasons for stopping.  When Spring came again his family or some of them were sick and it was two years before they got rid of their chills.When they had gotten well they felt so well and were charmed with the rich soil and luxuriant cane breaks and the abundance of game, they lost the desire to go farther.  In North Caroline, they had put manure in the furrow to raise corn and then the frost would cut it rare, ripe, a diminutive corn was all they could raise.The great ears of corn that grew on their rich bottoms was sufficient to meet the Expectation awakened by the glowing descriptions of Messers, Couch and Francis, they put all they had into clothes.  My great grandmother's fathers was James, he was born in Ireland, there were two brothers, James and William James. I suppose Jesse James is of the same family.  She as the daughter of William James they were rich.  The Campbells were Scottish-Irish.  Later Couch and Francis, the explorers found a path hacked from Carrs Creek to Grapevine. Peter DeWeese settled at the mouth of Grapevine and died from choking.  When they would find a bee tree they would cut down a small chestnut, peel it and fill it full of honey and carry it home.  The cane was a  evergreen and in winter and  summer made good pasture.  In the summer the pea vine was equal to bluegrass, flax was introduced.  Buckskin supplied the men.  The fifty families of the New River proposed to make a settlement about Lexington.  They came on later and settles at different places.  The Begleys, Sizemores, Rameys and my mother Margaret Williams came from that section.  The Nobles, Neaces and Fugates came later.  My grandfather was a religious man.  He was a freemason when he came here.  His children were:  James, John, Mary, Sallie, William, Francis, my father Elijah, Isaac, Stephen, Hiram, Samuel and Bitsy (Betsy),12 in all. William his brother, settles at the mouth of Campbells Creek.  His children were Charles,William, Elijah, Hanes, Henry, Daniel, Margaret and Amy. Campbell, Couch, Francis, James Eversole, DeWeese, Begley, Sizemore, Ramey, Williams, Noble, Neace.  NC. Boones borough, Madison Ky, Ireland, Lexington, Fayette, Ky, Clay, Ky

Submitted by Susan Fahnstrom