Shown in the old Campbell home as it appears today. Located on Armstrong Road two miles north of Seaman, it is quickly approaching the century and a half mark.
(By Stephen Kelley from the People’s Defender 1983)
Prior to the Civil War, there was a significant number of brick houses constructed in the valley of the West Fork of Oho Brush Creek and its tributaries. One of these homes, still standing today, was erected on high ground overlooking the confluence of Buck Run with the West Fork. This Scott Township farm was originally settled in 1807 by Joseph and Nancy Glasgow.
The Glasgow’s were from Rockbridge County, Viriginia. They were first cousins, Joseph, the son of Revolutionary War soldier, Robert Glasgow and Nancy the daughter of Arthur Glasgow who was a brother to Robert. Family records very but apparently Joseph and Nancy were married in Virginia in 1805 and moved to Adams County the following year. The farm they bought in 1807 on the West Fork adjoined land
which had been settled as early as 1796 by Joseph’s father, Robert. The Glasgow family belonged to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church having defected from the strict Covenanter faith. They were among the founders of the Hopeful Meeting House.
After buying their West Fork acreage, Joseph and Nancy erected a log house in which to live and raise their seven children. Shortly after hostilities erupted with Great Britian which ushered in the War of 1812, Joseph enlisted for active duty in Captain Edmund Wade’s company. Following his discharge, he returned home, broken in health. He died circa 1820 while being treated by an old Indian doctor.
By August, 1821, Nancy had remarried her new husband Robert Campbell, had been an early settler on Buck Run. He was also a native of Rockbridge County, Virginia and had possibly known Nancy before his removal to Ohio. Campbell had moved to Adams County with five of his brothers. Their Virginia home had been in a community known as Buck Run. It was apparently the Campbell brothers who then gave this same name to the small stream in Adams County in which they settled. Nancy’s remarriage following so quickly after Joseph Glasgow’s death evidently provoked the ire of her former in laws. In 1824, Joseph’s brothers, William and John, filed a complaint against Nancy and her children, attempting to gain control of the farm. This litigation was kept in the courts for the next seven years. Nancy’s ordeal finally ended in 1831 when her husband, Robert, bought the farm at sheriff’s auction for two dollars an acre.
Within a few years after this court settlement, Nancy and Robert built a substantial two story brick home on Tranquility and Buck Run Road which bisected their farm. This was about 1838-40, the same time period the brick mason, John Bierly, was constructing similar homes in the neighborhood. The Campbell’s brick home was built on the plan of a Virginia “I’ House, the prevailing architecture in southern Ohio at that time. We will tell you more about the history of this structure next week.
