Biography - Thomas Camp
REV. THOMAS CAMP, third son and seventh child of Sterling and Anna Camp,
was born in McMinn County, Tenn., Jan. 21, 1814, and died at Abingdon, this
county, Nov. 26, 1856. His parents were born in South Carolina, and in their
youth witnessed the stirring and often distressing scenes that occurred in
that section during the Revolutionary War.
In early life they accompanied the first emigrants who crossed the mountains
and sought settlement in East Tennessee, amid the wilds of nature and the
still wilder Indians, and there shared the hardships and perils encountered
by the early settlers of that region. Pushing on in the van of emigration,
they at length acquired a body of valuable land, then in the territory of
the Cherokees, now embraced in McMinn County, where they made final
settlement. There their children were born and reared, and there their ashes
now rest. Shut in by formidable mountain ranges, communication with the
outer world was both difficult and rare. Few books, fewer letters, and still
fewer newspapers reached these land-locked pioneers. Business, moral, social
and religious standards took quality largely from individuals, who, by
common consent, gave laws on these questions, by the power of their opinions
and example.
Among those uncrowned, non-elected givers of laws to their fellows, were
Sterling and Anna Camp - he, in the morals, methods and habits of successful
business - she, in the domestic, social and religious virtues. Such was the
parentage of the subject of this sketch, and such the conditions to which he
was born, and which, with small modifications, surrounded him to the age of
manhood. He had small opportunity for obtaining an education, other than he
found or could make within his own home. However, a native thirst for
knowledge led him to employ all his available time in study, and while still
young he evinced a strong desire for a liberal education, which grew to be
the one ambition of his earlier years. Circumstances compelled him to
abandon this cherished purpose, which through all subsequent life was a
source of deepest regret. At the town of White Plains, Ala., Dec. 20, 1835,
he was married to Charity Teague Neal, fourth daughter of Dr. John Neal, a
physician then widely known through the new Southern States. Returning with
his bride, he was soon established in a home on land situate on the
Hiawassee River, one and a quarter miles above Charleston. This land was put
under cultivation, and large grain and saw mills, workshops, etc. were
erected at the river side. Here was his home and the principal scene of his
labors, till the autumn of 1848, when, in company with his brother-in-law,
Rev. John M. Courtney, and two other families, he emigrated to Western
Illinois - proceeding the entire distance by road wagons - reaching his
temporary destination in Warren County, after six weeks' traveling. In the
spring of 1849 he purchased and located upon a tract of land, situated where
the town of Good Hope, McDonough County, now stands, a point then separated
by many miles in some directions from the nearest settler. This property he
improved, and upon it resided with his family till the spring of 1856, when
he removed to Abingdon, which has been the home of a portion of his family
during the past 30 years. His sole purpose in this removal was to give his
children such opportunity for an education as he had so ardently desired for
himself, but which had been denied him. Thomas Camp was the son of a Puritan
mother, and partook largely of her physical and mental characteristics.
Mrs. Anna Camp, nee Helm, was tall, lithe and sinewy, of body - clear,
vigorous and courageous of mind, with moral and religious convictions as
well defined as a geometric figure. She possessed much of that force of
character which has made several of her name conspicuous figures in
different Southern communities. Though of purely Carolina stock, she was as
essentially Puritan in heroic endurance for and in defense of truth, right,
liberty and conscience as any who ever went out from Plymouth Colony. These
qualities contributed much to make her the authority and power she was among
the people and amid the perils of her border home. Among the things that
came to be approved by people of influence about her, which fell under
condemnation by her fixed standards, were rum and slavery - to both of which
she was unalterably opposed. In these views of the mother the son shared
from boyhood, with all the intensity of a strong nature. He felt the wrong
of slavery as strongly as did any New England Abolitionist, and in addition
thereto he knew, by actual contact with that institution, its blighting
influence upon the better nature of both the white and black races, and
early determined to place his children beyond its immediate contagion. It
was to effect this object that he sacrificed his comfortable home in the
South, and accepted the stern conditions of an early settler in Illinois - a
step he never regretted. When, after a painful struggle, he abandoned his
cherished purpose of suitably preparing for a learned profession, he turned
to his plantation, mills and shops, with much energy, perseverance and fair
success; at the same time prosecuting such course of reading and study as
his limited leisure would permit. This line of life, however, did not prove
satisfying. He was possessed by an uncontrollable impulse toward a sphere of
broader usefulness among men. At length he became convinced that it was his
duty to enter the Gospel ministry, and to allot a portion of his time to
that work, while the remainder should be employed in conducting his ordinary
business affairs. Very many of the most effective preachers of that country
and period so divided their time. Accordingly, on the 18th of May, 1845, he
was ordained to the ministry of the Baptist Church, and from that date to
the close of his life a portion of his time was set apart for that work, and
with such allotment he allowed no requirement of other business to
interfere. He never accepted the pastorate of any church, though repeatedly
urged to do so - choosing rather to labor in the unoccupied or irreligious
fields. He never accepted compensation for ministerial labor, but always
gave liberally of his own private means to the support of the Gospel, and
insisted that Christians to whom he preached should do likewise.
Mr. Camp had little of the mannerism and minor methods of popular preachers,
and was therefore not a universal favorite. However, among more thoughtful
people, of various shades of belief and unbelief, his ministry was ever
acceptable, commanding their attendance and profound attention. In his
pulpit service he attempted no mere verbal ornamentation or rhetorical
effect. His discourses - clear, logical and practical, enforced by
scriptural quotations, and illustrated by facts gleaned from a wide range of
reading - were directed to the minds and consciences of men with great
power. He held that, under our form of government, the duties of citizenship
take rank as high moral and religious obligations, and, therefore, took deep
interest in the politics of his country. He was a stanch Whig until that
party was disbanded, when he naturally affiliated with the Republican party
with zeal and enthusiasm. It is remembered that he felled with his own
hands, and with his teams conveyed to the spot on Main street, Abingdon,
where it was erected, the young tree out of which was wrought the great pole
from which the large Fremont and Dayton flag floated during the campaign of
1856. He felt the defeat of the Republican party in that year, with all the
poignancy of a personal bereavement. The principles for which he had
contended for a lifetime achieved a political triumph four years later, but
ere then he had been "gathered to his fathers."
He placed an exaggerated estimate upon the advantages conferred by a
classical education, and, though a man of rare attainments, he always felt
at a disadvantage among men whose opportunities for education had been such
as had been denied to him. This, added to a native modesty approaching
diffidence, caused him to shrink from prominence among his fellows, and
resulted frequently in his not being placed in those stations of
responsibility for which he was so eminently fitted by superior natural and
acquired abilities.
A devoted husband and father, consistent in character, a model of probity,
ardent and tenacious in friendship, wise and sympathetic in counsel,
generous to a fault, and a lover of his kind, Thomas Camp was, altogether,
such a manly man as good men, everywhere, cherish in association and in
memory.
Contributed by Pat Thomas, extracted from the 1886 Portrait and Biographical
Album of Knox County, Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, page 926.
