The Border Warfare of New York: During the Revolution; Or, the Annals of Tryon County (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Border Warfare of New York: During the R...)
Excerpt from The Border Warfare of New York: During the Revolution; Or, the Annals of Tryon County
IN presenting this volume of Annals to the public, I would wish to say a few words as to its origin. It is a right which every reader of a book, purporting to be a record of facts, possesses, and may exercise, to examine its authenticity, and to demand whence the author has 'drawn his conclusions. In the fall of 1830 a society was formed in the village of Cherry Valley for literary purposes generally, but especially for col leeting facts illustrative of the natural and civil his toay of that section of country. I had been often requested to collect and imbody the events of its civil history, and was again solicited to prosecute this branch of inquiry. I at first contemplated writing only the history of Cherry Valley. Born and reared in that valley, I had, from early life, been in some de.
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William W. Campbell was an American jurist, historian, and congressman.
Background
William W. Campbell was born on June 10, 1806 in Cherry Valley, Otsego County, New York, United States, to which place his grandfather, Samuel Campbell, had come with his parents from Londonderry, New Hampshire, in 1742. Col. Samuel Campbell served under Gen. Nicholas Herkimer at Oriskany, and his wife, Jane, and seven-year-old son, James S. , were captured at the time of the Cherry Valley massacre but later exchanged for the wife and children of Col. John Butler. James S. Campbell married Sarah Elderkin, and William W. Campbell was their son.
Education
William was graduated from Union College in 1827, and among his classmates were Preston King and Rufus W. Peckham. He took up the study of law under Chancellor Kent.
Career
Campbell began practise in New York City in 1831.
His legal career was not spectacular. His service to the profession was to be in the capacity of jurist rather than of attorney. In 1841 he was appointed master in chancery, and afterward commissioner in bankruptcy, and, from 1849 until 1855, he was a justice of the superior court of New York City. He was justice of the state supreme court for the 6th judicial district, a post which he occupied from 1857 until 1865. During his early occupancy of the supreme court bench, he was very much under the influence of Justice Ransom Balcom, who generally wrote the opinions for the court. In 1863 Campbell became the presiding justice, and his influence among his colleagues became more apparent. He placed himself on record as opposed to the acceptance of the testimony under oath of atheists or disbelievers in a personal god, and thus helped shape the law of evidence in the state along conservative lines. On the other hand, he took a liberal position in interpreting the married women's property acts.
During his term of office, he addressed the House frequently on the subject of the Native American principles. Adopting as his slogan, "Americans should rule America, " he made vigorous efforts to restrict the voting privileges of naturalized citizens at a time when the great Irish emigration was at its flood-tide. In his well-known speech of January 27, 1846, in which he favored a compromise on the Oregon claim, he attacked the proposal to give political preference to naturalized citizens.
He successfully advocated restricting the right of suffrage in the Territory of Oregon to citizens of the United States, excluding those who had merely declared their intention to become citizens. In his public addresses he seemed unable to grasp the distinction between national and state citizenship. In 1831 he published his Annals of Tryon County; or, The Border Warfare of New-York During the Revolution, a colorful narrative, the sources of which are chiefly regional anecdotes. Because of his researches in the field of Indian history, he staunchly favored fair treatment for the Indians. In The Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton (1849), he points out the intimate personal and political association of his father and grandfather with the careers of George and De Witt Clinton. The volume comprises a brief notice of the Clintons and a selected number of Clinton's public addresses, and his Private Canal Journal for 1810. In 1813 Campbell published An Historical Sketch of Robin Hood and Captain Kidd, the inspiration for which was a trip a few years previously to the Yorkshire district in England. The author in his defense of the character of Kidd gave a lucid analysis of the documentary material, an analysis vindicated by modern critical scholarship.
(Excerpt from The Border Warfare of New York: During the R...)
Politics
He was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Otsego Co. , 1st D. ) in 1869.
Views
Quotations:
"I value too highly my American birthright to barter it for political preferment; I would not sell it for a mess of pottage".
Membership
Campbell was one of the most active members of the Native American party, and, as its nominee, he was elected to Congress, and served from 1845 until 1847.
Connections
Campbell was married twice: first on August 13, 1833, to Maria Starkweather of Cooperstown, New York, and after her death in 1853, to Catherine, daughter of Jacob Livingston of Cherry Valley.