Thomas and Jennnie Campbell

Thomas & Jennnie Campbell

Thomas: b. 1886 – d.1981 m. Jennie Jock – b. 1886- 1976

Thomas and Jennie Campbell lived in Reynoldston all of their lives. Thomas Campbell’s father served in the Civil War and his mother was widowed by the Civil War .

JOSEPH CAMPBELL (1833-1906) In the early 1870’s Joseph Campbell was present in what was to become Reynoldston. A Civil War veteran,1862-65 he is known to have walked to work at the Webster sawmill, in the village of Skerry, three miles away. Joseph Campbell also operated a store, but on a much smaller scale than the Reynolds store. Joseph and his wife Mary had more than 12 children, some from a previous marriage, 43 grandchildren and 73 great-grandchildren. Joseph Campbell’s daughter Mary wed Albert Bordeaux, son of Allen, uniting two of the earliest and largest families in the community. Their union also set a pattern of intermarriage and interrelationship between and among French, Scottish and English people, and future Protestants and Catholics, that was typical of Reynoldston labourers and farmers throughout its history.

Tom Campbell

Describes his parents and family“Well about the first…..Campbell. From Vermont, Swanton. (in Civil War) I heard him tell about the Battle of Bull Run….the second battle of bull run. Of course he didn’t like to talk about that too much you know. He said it was a fierce battle thats all.. He did too, there was a fellow down here by the name of Brown…He was the Captain. Captain Brown. (had uniforms an guns from the war) But they are all destroyed now.. He had a pistol about that long…they are all gone now. We did have a picture of the battle of Bull Run, but I don’t know what ever become of it. Of course when we built here, we took a lot our stuff and put it up there where the mill use be into the office and they broke in there and they took a lot stuff and I imagine they took that.

Well farming and before he married my mother he was a sawyer in the mill up to what they called the old mill …the Webster Mill. He said it was an up and down saw you know. You could eat your dinner and let it go through the log.. Well there wasn’t many houses up in there. You see my father had to walk from here up there every night and morning. I imagine hat there was ( a boarding house)…but they draed their lumber out to by Skerry. (lumber to market) I imagine to Malone. (Tom’s father) Well he was good natured all right enough some time. Of course when things went wrong it went the other way. I think he was more strict with them (his children) No he wasn’t a Catholic, but he was Prespeterian, but he changed before he died and was Catholic when he died.

(Mother was a Catholic) Mary Rondeau (Tom’s mother name) “from Michigan….I imagine some of her folk lived here…lived right down the road a little ways. (married his mother after civil war)

Tom Campbell tape 4 p.1

“Well my mother was married twice and my father was married twice. My father had two children when he married my mother and my mother had two children. Her first husband was a Gonyea. Henry Gonyea. (Toms father’s first wife) I don’t know…they were married over in Vermont. (she died in Vermont) (two children from Vermont were older than Sarah….(Gonyea) was from Brushton…he died in the Civil War her husband did. (Tom’s father had 13 children with his 2^nd wife….17 all together and then we brought up one. Julia, one of my sister’s died and we brought up the little girl…she was about a year old. But Julia was the oldest of my family not Sarah…You see I don’t remember her. I was just a baby I guess when she died…Myrtle that Julia’s girls name. She lives in Ogdensburg now…She’s about my age 80 or 85… (Mary Bordeaux) she was the next one from Sarah….she was little bit younger then Sarah.. Of course the older ones they worked out and all the girls worked out…they wasn’t here. When they could get a job they worked out and just the same way with the boys. When the boys got old enough, they had to get out and work.”

Tom Campbell tape 4 p.

Click on the following links to Read the Transcript:

TRANSCRIPT TAPES 1-5

Tape 1