How the Campbell family came to Pottstown area
POTTSTOWN — Exactly when the Campbell family moved from Philadelphia to Pottstown is now a mystery. However it seems that romance provided the “why.”
After Maurice Campbell’s mother died in July 1879, his father, Samuel, wasted little time in finding a new Mrs. Campbell. On Nov. 17, 1880, he married Caroline Brooke, the daughter of William and Martha (Rutter) Brooke and sister of U.S. Army officer John Rutter Brooke, in what is now Lower Pottsgrove Township.
The wedding took place at Brookeland, the Brooke ancestral farm, in “the presence of a number of the elite of Philadelphia and this place,” according to The Ledger. Despite getting the names of the bride and bridegroom wrong — he was identified as “M.L. Campbell” and she as “Carrie” Brooke — The Ledger boasted to its readers that “everything connected with the wedding was recherche in each particular.”
And it was, for 1880 Pottstown, over the top. Not only did the “bride receive some very handsome and costly presents”, but the “bridal party” left the Brooke farm “in a special car, which will be attached to the regular train.”
The newlyweds, “after a short wedding trip,” were going to live in Philadelphia in a house “just built by the groom.”
In 1870, Samuel Campbell was a confectioner — he made candy — but by the time he remarried he had put that behind him and had moved west where he made a lot of money mining silver in Leadville, Colo.
The Campbells didn’t stay in Philadelphia long. By 1883 they were living on the Brooke farm, and two of Samuel’s sons, Maurice, and his older brother, Harry, had also moved to the Pottstown area, as noted in the records of Christ Episcopal Church in which all are listed as members.
Eventually, Samuel Campbell became the owner of the Brooke farm. There he built another house that was described in detail in The Ledger. It was a three-story stone building surrounded by a wide porch, with an estimated 30 rooms finished in hard wood and a wide walnut stairway. Unfortunately, tramps set fire to the structure in 1907, four years after the Campbells left, and it burned to the ground.
When Samuel and Caroline Campbell moved in 1903, The Ledger reported they were probably going to New York City, but instead they went to Mount Vernon, N.Y. Caroline died there on Jan. 24, 1905, and is buried in the Campbell family lot in Mount Laurel Cemetery in Philadelphia.
Samuel Campbell returned to Pennsylvania, living first in Delaware County and then in Philadelphia, where he died, March 25, 1920, just after his 91st birthday. He is also buried in Mount Laurel, along with both of his wives.
Samuel Campbell’s oldest son, Harry Sagers Campbell, was the only member of the family who remained in Pottstown. Harry married Mary Rutter, daughter of Charles Rutter and his wife, Mary (Ives) Rutter, and first cousin to his stepmother.
The Campbells lived at 62 S. Hanover St., for years and then moved to 560 High St. Harry Campbell worked for the Pottstown Iron Co. and the Glasgow Iron Works and, after the latter closed, became a retail coal dealer. He died at his home March 3, 1935, at the age of 75.
Mary Campbell died at her home of a heart attack on June 21, 1942, four months before the death of her brother-in-law, Maurice Campbell. She was 85.
She and her husband are buried in Edgewood Cemetery.
They had two children, both of whom remained in Pottstown. Charles Rutter Campbell (1890-1965) and Mary Ives Campbell, (1896-1971), whom many Pottstown residents will remember, operated a small book store on High Street. They, like their parents, are buried in Edgewood Cemetery.