People

John Edwards Campbell was born March 23, 1847 in Frederick County, Virginia at the family homestead near Stony Mead.

As a young man, John attended Winchester Academy. He was barely a teenager when the Civil War broke out in 1860 and despite his yearning to join his older brothers in the fight, he instead was urged to continue his schooling. This pursuit led him into the teaching profession, where he became an educator in Romney, Virginia in 1868.

But a year later, he traveled west, finding employment as a teacher in Missouri and Kansas. But, living was not easy in the west and John found himself needing to earn extra money, which he did by taking jobs as a saw mill worker, driving an ox team and cutting railroad ties.

Through hard work and perserverance, John was able to build up enough to find better employment, moving into the Indian Territory in the early 1870s, working as a manager in the store of J.H. Bartles, who was an early founder of the town that bears his name -- Bartlesville.

John married Emeline Journeycake, the daughter of Delaware Chief Charles Journeycake, in 1878.

In the early 1880s, John moved east, opening a mercantile business near present day Alluwe. He came to Nowata in 1887, opening the first mercantile business in Nowata.

Nowata grew fast during this time and in 1898, Campbell established the Nowata bank and served as its vice president. This is the bank that would later become the First National Bank of Nowata.

Campbell would become one of the largest property owners in Nowata. He sold land that he owned and used the proceeds to purchase the site where the Presbyterian Church was erected in 1908. Campbell attended services there himself.

John Edwards Campbell passed away at the age of 78 on February 14, 1926 from a stroke. His sudden passing was a shock to the Nowata community.

"It is probable that no one man in Nowata county has had as much to do in the growth and development of Nowata and Nowata county as had J.E. Campbell," the Nowata Daily Star reported on February 15th, following his passing.