Hon. John Lloyd Campbell, Judge of the Superior Court in and for San Bernardino County, was born in Equality, Gallatin County, Illinois, in 1855. His father, Hon. John Lewis Campbell, was connected with the banking business in Shawnee town, and with iron and salt manufacture in Southern Illinois for many years. In 1857 he moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and was there elected County Judge.
When the war of the Rebellion broke out, he moved back to Illinois and enlisted in the Third Illinois Cavalry, of which he was made Major. In 1863, while placing his pickets near Jackson, Mississippi, he was shot in the side, shoulder and face by a squad of Confederate soldiers and supposed to be fatally wounded; but, by the exercise of his extraordinary will aided by great tenacity of life, he partially recovered and lived until 1875, though always suffering from the effects of his wounds, which finally induced the paralysis which terminated his life.
After the war he was appointed Postmaster at Olney, Illinois, by President Lincoln, which office he held until his death, in 1875. After graduating from the high school of his native State the subject of this memoir entered Hanover College, Indiana, but was called home at the end of his first college year by the death of his father, and did not return. He attended Columbia College Law School, New York, and was graduated where from in the spring of 1878. Coming to California, he settled in San Bernardino in 1879, and entered into a law partnership with Colonel A. B. Paris, which was terminated at the end of the year by Mr. Campbell’s returning to the East. He located in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he practiced his profession three years.
In 1883 he cane back to San Bernardino at the request of Judge J. A. Gibson and formed a partnership with that gentleman. In 1884 Mr. Campbell was candidate on the Republican ticket for District Attorney, and his law partner ran for Superior Judge, both being elected. During his term of office the law allowed him an assistant, but he did the work alone with the exception of occasional assistance; and the last year-1886-tried thirty-two felony cases, convicting thirty of them. He was re-nominated for the office on the first ballot, receiving 132 out of 140 votes in the convention, but was defeated at the election by Colonel Paris, his first law partner, that being a year of general Democratic success in the county. Continuing practice alone until the fall of 1888, Judge Campbell was then nominated and elected Superior Judge for the term of six years, and took his seat on the bench January 7, 1889, being thirty-three years of age and one of the youngest judges in the State.
On May 17, 1888, Judge Campbell married Miss Hattie Muscott, daughter of one of the leading horticulturists of the Mount Vernon district. She is a native of Iowa and has lived on the Pacific coast seven years. Judge and Mrs. Campbell, together with his aged mother, reside in their pretty home at Urbita, just out-side the city limits, which he purchased at the cost of $8,000. The Judge is much in love with the country and climate of Southern California, and is thoroughly loyal to the state of his adoption.