JOHN PERCY CAMPBELL. The subject of this sketch is a son of Samuel P. Campbell, a native of North Carolina, who removed to middle Tennessee when quite a young man and resided there until 1868, when he removed to Stoddard County, Missouri; from there he moved to Ripley County in 1871. He served as corporal in Company C, Sixth Tennessee Cavalry, in the Union Army, during the late war. He is still hale and hearty, though having reached his threescore years and ten, and resides with his good wife near Gatewood, Missouri, where they are surrounded by a large circle of admiring friends. They are both consistent members of the Christian Church.
John P., the youngest of nine children, was born in Hardin County, Tennessee, on the 28th day of July, 1866, and has therefore just passed his twenty-eighth birthday. He was educated in the common schools of the county and a grammar school at Warm Springs, Arkansas, where he displayed an aptitude far beyond his years. He began teaching at the age of sixteen, and achieved marked success as a teacher. After three years as a pedagogue he took a position as “devil” in the office of the Doniphan Prospect, where he remained until that paper and the Current River News were consolidated. He then accepted a position as salesman in the grocery store of H. H. Hart, of Doniphan. He afterward served other firms as salesman until August, 1887, when he accepted a deputyship in the office of the county clerk, which position he held for three and a half years, when he resigned that position to accept a position on the staff of the engrossing clerk of the Lower House of the Thirty-sixth General Assembly of Missouri. Upon the adjournment of the Assembly Mr. Campbell returned to Doniphan and accepted a position in the hardware house of J. R. Wright. In the spring of 1892 he made a trip overland to northern Texas, returning during the summer of that year, and resumed his connection with J. R. Wright, where he remained until November, 1893, since which time he has been employed by the tax collector and the county clerk, in which latter office he is now engaged. Mr. Campbell, besides being an industrious and energetic young man, has always been free from the excesses and frivolities that so often beset young men starting out to earn a place and a name. Being free from the use of strong drink, tobacco and other like evils, he, in casting his first vote in March, 1888, when a proposition to adopt local option in Ripley County was submitted, placed himself on record as in favor of the proposition. In 1890 he was a candidate before the Democratic primary election for the nomination for the office of clerk of the Circuit Court, and although his competitor had made a model Circuit clerk for more than fifteen years, and though the incumbent had an overwhelming advantage in the campaign, yet so popular had this young man become that when the votes were counted it was found that a change of only 77 votes out of a total vote of 975 would have given him the nomination. In 1894 he made the race for the same position and won by a handsome plurality over two of the best young men of the county. There-fore, as the nomination is equivalent to an election,barring Providential intervention, Mr. Campbell will on January 1, 1895, assume the duties of clerk of the circuit court of Ripley County. Mr. Campbell is not a member of any church, yet, while he differs from his father (who is a Republican) in politics, his “leaning” is toward the religion of his parents. He is a member of Doniphan Lodge No. 11 1, Knights of Pythias, and is prominent in the local councils of the fraternity, holding at present the office of master of finance of the lodge. He is unmarried.