Hugh Campbell

Hugh Campbell died at home after a brief illness on April 20, 2024 on his farm in Hanover County, Virginia. Our Dad was born to Leslie Dunlop Campbell, Sr. and Norine Dickson Campbell on November 9, 1933, in the house where he lived and raised our family. The youngest of six siblings, whom he adored, family and heritage meant everything to him. His father was his hero. As a young boy, he grew up in the woods along the Newfound River where he swam, hunted, fished, played, and made trouble with his older brothers. Dad often remarked how grateful he was that his father had moved the family from Richmond back to Hanover in the early 20th century and how especially grateful he was for his older brother Les, who Dad credited with laying the foundation of success for him and the family. Dad cherished his high school days at Henry Clay High School in Ashland, where he had many friends, was class president, and played varsity baseball, football, and basketball. Even after his recent mental decline took root, Dad loved to regale us with remembrances of the smallest details of football and baseball games he had participated in some seventy plus years ago. Class reunions over the years were a special treat for Dad, as his friendships were lifelong and loyal. Dad attended Randolph-Macon College, with his education being interrupted by a year of Army service in Korea just after the war. While Dad hated his time away from home (and kimchi), he recognized what a powerful turning point this was in his life as the importance of duty, honor and country were forever engrained in him. Upon his return, he graduated from Randolph-Macon and then followed brother Les to the T. C. Williams Law School at the University of Richmond, where he graduated in 1961. Thereafter, Dad established his law practice in Ashland with Les, and eventually with his son, Hugh Sheppard Campbell, which he continued until his retirement in 2005. While practicing law was Dad’s occupation, his true love was spending time on the family farm, Greenock, which is comprised of numerous parcels of land he managed to buy back into the family. Every evening after work and every weekend Dad could be found on the tractor or in the fields- managing cattle, horses, pigs, and chickens, repairing or building fences, catching a stray calf, baling hay, clearing land, building ponds or cutting trees. Dad’s enormous vegetable gardens and orchards were an annual source of delight to us all. In addition to being a gentleman farmer, Dad could do almost anything: he built barns, houses, and furniture, owned and flew a plane (taking off from a home-made landing strip at Greenock with the entire family in tow for trips as far away as Kill Devil Hills), developed land, wrote and recited poetry, bred and branded cattle, bred and broke quarter horses (Charlie Bolt and Hanover Troop being favorites), surveyed land, learned to play the guitar, played tennis and golf, could identify any tree, made homemade wine, and especially loved the challenge of finding wild honey. Dad was a keen historian. He loved American history, and the exploits of Lewis and Clark, about whom he frequently lectured, were his personal favorite. At one time, Dad even owned a letter signed by George Washington, of which he was extremely proud. Dad was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati and the first President of the Hanover County Historical Society. At heart, our Dad was a real cowboy and an adventurer. His annual summer trips out west were legendary: with a lucky handful of friends he lived his best life in the back country and mountains- navigating the Snake and Salmon Rivers, white water rafting often (once even on a homemade wooden raft), exploring the Continental Divide, camping, horseback riding, and living in the wild like a frontiersman. Dad is survived by our mother, his wife of 60 years, Sally Pendleton Campbell, who was his devoted caregiver in his final years, as well as his four children and eleven grandchildren: the Honorable Hugh S. Campbell (Trish) of Hanover and their children, Hugh Braden and Grace; Susan C. Meyer (Charlie) of Crozier, Virginia and their children Caroline (Dillon), Meg, and Charlie IV (fiancée Bronwyn); Barret C. Butler (Bryan) of Charlotte, North Carolina and their children Anne Forrest, Cricket, and Roane; and Elizabeth C. Rockwell (Edward) of Raleigh, North Carolina and their children Fenwick, Ella, and Lawrence. He is also survived by his four sisters-in-law and their spouses, and numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews who were all also dear to him. A visitation with the family will be held on Friday, April 26, 2024, from 5 to 7pm at the Nelsen Funeral Home, Reid Chapel in Ashland, Virginia. A Service of Thanksgiving for Dad’s life will be held on Saturday, April 27, 2024, at 11am at the Fork Episcopal Church in Doswell, Virginia, where he was a lifelong member. A reception will be held immediately following his interment in the churchyard at his son’s home at Greenock. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Preservation Virginia (www.preservationvirginia.org) in his honor for the benefit of Scotchtown, the home of Patrick Henry, or to the Fork Episcopal Church. As Dad would say, please remember your duty, your honor, and your country. He loved to laugh, and he will be deeply missed.