David Campbell (1779–1859) studied law as a young man but made his living in Abingdon as a merchant and investor in land. He held a commission in the United States Army from 1812 to 1814, rising from major to lieutenant colonel and serving in infantry regiments on the Canadian frontier. Campbell sat in the Senate of Virginia, 1820–24, and then succeeded his father as clerk of Washington County. Initially a Jeffersonian, he eventually migrated from the Democratic to the Whig Party. The Virginia legislature elected Campbell a major general of militia in 1834 and governor in 1837. Following his three-year term, he returned to his Montcalm estate near Abingdon (DVB description begins John T. Kneebone and others, eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography, 1998– , 3 vols. description ends ; Heitman, U.S. Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1903, 2 vols. description ends , 277; Leonard, General Assembly description begins Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619–January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Members, 1978 description ends , 306, 311, 316, 321; Daily Richmond Enquirer, 24 Mar. 1859).

On 23 May 1811 the Virginia council of State ordered that in the interest of determining “the amount of the unsatisfied claims for land” dating from the Revolutionary War, “all persons having such claims are required to present them to the executive of this state on or before the 20th day of November next, authenticated by such evidence as the law now requires” (Richmond Enquirer, 31 May 1811). The edmistons: Ensign Andrew Edmondson and Lieutenant Robert Edmondson Sr. were killed and Lieutenant Robert Edmondson Jr. and Major William Edmondson were wounded on 7 Oct. 1780 at the Battle of Kings Mountain (Heitman, Continental Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution, April, 1775, to December, 1783, rev. ed., 1914 description ends , 212). On 10 and 15 Nov. 1780 the lower and upper houses of the virginia legislature separately voted their unanimous thanks to “colonel William Campbell, of the county of Washington, and the officers and soldiers of the militia under his command” for their recent victory over “a party of the enemy commanded by major Ferguson, consisting of about eleven hundred and five men (British and Tories) strongly posted on King’s Mountain” (Philadelphia Pennsylvania Packet or the General Advertiser, 30 Dec. 1780).