A New Foundation for an 1864 Stone at Grove-Geffs
The marker of James B. Campbell, who died June 9, 1864, on its new concrete foundation. Grove-Geffs Cemetery, Wayne Township, Clinton County, Ohio, October 10, 2026. Photograph by the author.
The concrete under the stone was new. It was still pale gray and sharp at the edges, with loose dirt raked back around it. On top of it a marble headstone stood straight, and beside the headstone someone had pushed a small American flag into the ground.
I saw it on October 10, 2026, at Grove-Geffs Cemetery in Wayne Township, Clinton County, Ohio. Other stones in that ground lean against the trees or lie flat in the grass. This one stood plumb on a new base.
The work had been done that morning by Masons from two lodges, one in Clinton County and one in Highland County.
What the Stone Says
The name runs in an arc across the top: JAMES B. CAMPBELL. Under the arc is a carved square and compasses, the emblem of a Freemason. Then the inscription: “DIED June 9, 1864; Aged 27 y’rs 3 m’s & 6 d’s.” A last small line reads “Gone but not lost.”
Count back from that age and he was born on March 3, 1837.
The county’s printed cemetery records read the stone the same way, under “CAMPBELL, James.” The sign at the gate spells the place “Grove - Geff Cemetery” and lists a James Campbell among its “early Ohio Pioneer Residents of Clinton County.”
June 1864 was the fourth summer of the Civil War. A man of 27 who died that month invites a guess, and the flag makes the same guess. I went to the records to see whether they make it too.
The inscription: “James B. Campbell, died June 9, 1864, aged 27 y’rs 3 m’s & 6 d’s.” The square and compasses are carved above the date. Photograph by the author, October 10, 2026.
What the Records Show
They show a husband first. On April 29, 1862, James B. Campbell took out a license in the Clinton County Probate Court to marry Sarepta Geffs. They were married on May 2.
Then they show a man putting his affairs in order. On April 8, 1864, he signed a will. He called himself “of the County of Highland and State of Ohio.” To his wife he left “the property which we now reside on” in the town of Leesburg, Ohio, about an acre and a quarter, with the stock, household goods and furniture on it. He left her his interest in a drug store, “the firm of Grove & Campbell.” A lot in Centerville, Adams County, Ohio, went to his mother and, after her, to his brother, Shelby P. Campbell. He named his wife to carry out the will. The clerk who copied it into the record wrote her name “Surrepta.”
Two months later he was dead. The will was proved in the Highland County Probate Court on June 14, 1864, five days after the date on the stone.
Three weeks after he died, an advertisement for a cough remedy in the Hillsboro, Ohio, paper still listed “Grove & Campbell, Leesburg” among the dealers who sold it.
So the man over the new foundation did not live in Clinton County when he died. His home was in Leesburg, Highland County, Ohio, and so was the drug store he had a share in. He was buried in Wayne Township, in a ground where the cemetery book lists twelve people of his wife’s maiden name.
His widow did not stay. On December 23, 1865, Sarepta Campbell swore to her final account of the estate before a notary in Marion County, Illinois. The Ohio court received it on February 24, 1866.
The sign at the gate reads “Grove - Geff Cemetery. Dedicated to the memory of these early Ohio Pioneer Residents of Clinton County.” Photograph by the author, October 10, 2026.
What They Do Not Show
No record I have read shows that James B. Campbell served in the war.
No card for him has been found among the state’s veterans’ grave registration cards for the county. The plat that a Works Progress Administration (WPA) crew drew of this cemetery names five veterans, and he is not one of them. The state’s printed roster of Ohio soldiers runs to twelve volumes. I searched the scanned text of ten of them for a James Campbell who died on June 9, 1864, and found none. A search is not a reading of every page. The Hillsboro paper’s local columns for the two weeks after his death do not mention it.
Three other men of the name did serve. A James W. Campbell was in the 149th Ohio that summer, a hundred-day regiment raised partly in Clinton County. The roster gives his age as 25 and has him mustered out with his company on August 30, 1864. A James P. Campbell was a private in Company E of the 153rd Ohio, another hundred-day regiment, made up of National Guard companies from Clermont and Clark counties, Ohio. The roster gives his age as 36 and has him mustered out with his company on September 9, 1864, three months after the date on the Grove-Geffs stone. In 1890 he applied for an invalid pension. A James B. Campbell served in Company C of the 36th Ohio Infantry. His pension card says he died at Hamden, Ohio, on January 10, 1919. None of them is the man at Grove-Geffs.
The stone does not say soldier. The will does not say soldier. What they show is a husband, a partner in a drug store and a Mason, dead at 27 with his will already made. Until a record says more, that is how I will write him.
Who Set the Stone
The emblem on the stone says he was a Mason. The Masons who reset it have since told me where he was one.
By their account, which rests on his record at the Grand Lodge of Ohio, James B. Campbell was raised a Master Mason in Sabina Lodge No. 324, at Sabina, Ohio, on December 29, 1860, and joined Leesburg Lodge No. 78, in his own town, in 1863. I have not seen that record myself. The Grand Lodge’s printed proceedings for 1855 do list a Leesburg Lodge, No. 78, at Leesburg. Their roll gives his birth year as 1832. The stone’s age at death points to 1837, and I follow the stone until the Grand Lodge record can be read.
The stone was standing in 2011. A photograph added to its Find a Grave memorial that year shows it upright, white and clean, with a rough stone block at its foot. Sometime after that it came off its foundation. Their account does not say whether it fell or was pushed.
A Mason who came across it in the cemetery photographed it and asked about the man at his lodge in Sabina. The Grand Lodge helped find his record. The Sabina lodge told the Leesburg lodge, and on the morning of Saturday, October 10, 2026, Masons from both lodges met at Grove-Geffs and reset the stone. I came by that afternoon.
Above: the stone on the morning of October 10, 2026, before the work began; two Masons setting it in fresh concrete; and Masons from the Sabina and Leesburg lodges with the reset stone. Photos courtesy of Gary Cooper.
My thanks to the two lodges for the work, and for telling me about it.
Sources: Gravestone of James B. Campbell, Grove-Geffs Cemetery, Wayne Township, Clinton County, Ohio; read and photographed by the author, October 10, 2026. Cemetery Records of Clinton County, Ohio, 1798–1978 (Clinton County Historical Society, 1980), p. 345, “Grove-Geff Cemetery, Clinton County No. 45.” Clinton County, Ohio, Probate Court, Marriage Record, vol. 2 (1857–1864), p. 431, James B. Campbell and Sarepta Geffs, license April 29, 1862, married May 2, 1862; in “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789–2016,” FamilySearch. Highland County, Ohio, Probate Court, Will Record, p. 18, will of James B. Campbell, signed April 8, 1864, proved June 14, 1864; and Record of Accounts, 1863–1866, p. 545, final account of the executrix; both in “Ohio, Probate Records, 1789–1996,” FamilySearch. Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1866, vol. 9, p. 137 (149th Regiment), and the 153rd Regiment’s opening page and p. 191. Works Progress Administration (WPA) Veterans’ Graves Registration plat, Grove-Geffs Cemetery, Clinton County, Ohio, 1938–1940. Find a Grave, memorial 25694714, James B. Campbell, photograph added May 26, 2011. The Highland News (Hillsborough, Ohio): “Matters about Home,” June 16 and June 23, 1864, p. 3; advertisement, “Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral,” June 30, 1864, p. 4; page images at the Library of Congress, Chronicling America. “US, Civil War Pensions Index, 1861–1900,” cards for James B. Campbell, Company C, 36th Ohio Infantry, and James P. Campbell, Company E, 153rd Ohio Infantry; Fold3. Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, 1848–1857, p. 549 (the 1855 returns); HathiTrust. Account of the resetting, “Two Masonic Lodges reset Grave Marker,” typescript by a member of the lodges, October 21, 2026, and the same member’s Masonic roll for James B. Campbell, typescript, October 21, 2026. Photographs of the resetting, October 10, 2026, courtesy of Gary Cooper.
