A Leading St. Louis Citizen

Hugh Campbell

2728 Pine Avenue
Born: November 15, 1847
Death: August 9, 1831 - St. Louis, MO
Burial: Bellefontaine Cemetery St. Louis

Family links:

Parents: Robert Campbell, Virginia Kyle Campbell
Spouse: Mary Kyle

Hugh Campbell has been consigned to relative obscurity in local history books, usually overshadowed by the wild adventures and wealth of his younger brother Robert.  Though sharing Robert’s business acumen, integrity and work ethic, Hugh has been cast as the boring, upright and sanctimonious elder brother.  This characterization is an unfortunate oversimplification of a thoughtful and complex man who was the true patriarch of a sprawling family separated by the Atlantic.

Born in 1797 in County Tyrone, Ireland, Hugh was the third child and second son in his family.  Three more children followed, and Robert was the youngest.  After Hugh’s father died in 1810, his will divided the three family farms among four sons.  Though Hugh was given the prized Aughalane estate, he had to share it with younger brother James, and he was also charged with supporting the family and paying off his father’s debts.  Hugh was thirteen years old.  Hugh tried medical school in Edinburgh but dropped out after a year due in part to his tendency to faint in the dissection room.  With few other options, he left Ireland in 1818 for America.  Robert followed him four years later.

Hugh Campbell, circa 1840

After arriving in the United States, Hugh lived most of his life on the east coast, living in North Carolina, Virginia, and ultimately settling in Philadelphia.  Eventually becoming a prosperous merchant in his own right, Hugh married Mary Kyle, the daughter of his business partner, David Kyle.  (Mary was a cousin to Virginia Kyle, who would later marry Robert Campbell in 1841.)  In 1859, Hugh and Mary left Philadelphia amd moved to St. Louis into a house on the corner of Washington Avenue and 16th Street, just steps away from Robert’s home.  Hugh and Mary had no children of their own, but they enjoyed a close relationship with their nieces and nephews.  (This earlier blog entry speaks volumes about Hugh and Mary’s love for Robert and Virginia’s children.)  In fact the children called Hugh and Mary’s home “the other house.”  In St. Louis, the brothers continued their business pursuits together in the burgeoning dry goods business in the backdrop of the Civil War.

Hugh was active in the elite social and political landscape of the city, and he was appointed by President Lincoln to adjust claims against the military in the West.  Throughout his life, he remitted money to his family in Ireland to ensure their comfort.  Hugh took care of the tenants on his family’s property by sending them clothing, cash, flax seed and seed potatoes.  When the potato crops failed during the Great Famine, he sent food.  Hugh was equally generous with Irish who emigrated to the United States.  Because of his charity and assistance to fellow countrymen, it is no surprise he was greeted with a hero’s welcome when he returned to Ireland on four separate occasions to visit.

Hugh died just six weeks after Robert, on December 4, 1879.

Saint Louis Campbell House Museum Website