To several of my personal friends, particularly to Mr G. Ely, I am obliged for hints and helpful suggestions, which I gratefully acknowledge. The Campbells, as everybody knows, can claim an incredibly long descent. There is a Clan Campbell Society, the chairman of which declared some years ago that he possessed a pedigree carrying the family back to the year , and no doubt there are enthusiasts who can trace it to at least the time of the Flood.
The poet was not particular about his pedigree, but the biographer of a Campbell would be doing less than justice to his subject if he denied him that ell of genealogy which Lockhart deemed the due of every man who glories in being a Scot.
In the present case, fortunately for the biographer, there is authoritative assistance at hand. The descent may be stated in a few words. He died in , leaving three sons, from one of whom, Iver, sprang the Campbells in whom we are now interested. There is a suggestion, scouted by Principal Campbell, that the poet believed himself to be remotely connected with the great ducal house of Argyll. These, however, are speculations for the antiquary rather than for the biographer.
He was the last to reside on the family estate of Kirnan. Late in life he had taken a second wife, a daughter of Stewart, the laird of Ascog. Before her marriage the lady had lived much in the Lowlands, and now she said she could not live in the Highlands: the solitude preyed upon her health and spirits. Beyond the interesting fact that he was educated under the care of Robert Wodrow, the celebrated historian [11] and preacher, from whose teaching he drew the strict religious principles which regulated his life, we hear nothing of the earlier years of Alexander Campbell.
He went to America, and was in business for some time at Falmouth, in Virginia. There he met with the son of a Glasgow merchant, another Campbell, to whom he was quite unrelated, and together the two returned to Scotland to start in Glasgow as Virginia traders.
