Man’s ambition is seldom satisfied. Visions of greater wealth and the thrills that go with the making held Green Campbell with a vise-like grip. He willed to stay in the West.
His wife preferred to stay in Kansas with her people, at Circleville. Or, maybe, it was decided that the untamed West, the desert with its sizzling summer suns and unbridled winds, was no place for Florence Oursler Campbell and her little boy Charley. Anyhow the situation brought about an estrangement and, finally, a separation. Ofttimes men, too much absorbed in chasing the pot of gold, unconsciously make this supreme sacrifice.
Clouds began to appear on Green Campbell’s marital horizon soon after he went West, but the storm did not break until he was virtually in the big money. He was enormously engrossed with his mining operations, while back here at home, because of his continued absence, a growing resentment was piling up against him day by day. The time was coming, if he would see it, when he must give up either his mines, or his family. He heeded not the signals, seriously. Like his royal highness across the Atlantic—the self-deposed king—until disaster was upon him, he proposed to keep them both.
Florence Campbell filed her petition for divorce and alimony in the Jackson County court at Holton. Case Broderick of Holton and Judge Stillings of Leavenworth were her attorneys. Green Campbell was represented by Hayden & Hayden of Holton and Colonel Everest of Atchison. The stage was set for a spirited legal battle. The whole country buzzed with gossip. Because of the prominence of the Campbells and the Ourslers people traveled for miles on horseback and in wagons to attend the hearings.
The plaintiff and her witnesses occupied the stage for a day and a half. Then the defense attorneys armed with depositions and a liberal line-up of witnesses, told the court what they had up their sleeves. But the judge, being somewhat of a sleuth, had already detected that something was wrong with the plaintiff’s legal machinery. Gears didn’t mesh. The charge was out of alignment with the facts as adduced by the plaintiff and her own witnesses. In short, her lawyers had experienced embarrassment in their endeavor to twist a prolonged absence from Campbell’s fireside — and whatever else that was offered—into “extreme cruelty.”
There had to be a “charge,” to be sure, but it would appear that the plaintiff’s attorneys might have more profitably selected for their client, out of their cabinet of ready-made complaints, something more reasonable, something less galling to the fine sensibilities of the man. Judge John T. Morton said that inasmuch as the plaintiff had failed to prove her case, defense testimony would not be heard. Moreover, he said Mrs. Campbell would get no alimony.
There was not, as one might suspect, another man in the case—not a breath of scandal. Mrs. Campbell was too fine for that. It was her unalterable conviction that she and her child were being unduly neglected. It was “blue” blood in revolt—indignant, regrettable rebellion.
The decree was given the defendant, Green Campbell, on February 23, 1878. Custody of the little boy, Charles R. Campbell, was given to the mother. Mr. Campbell was required to pay $250 a year for the boy’s “keep and education,” with a lien on the northeast quarter of 22-6-14. Two hundred and fifty dollars a year from a potential millionaire to keep and educate his son! All right then, perhaps, but it sounds like parsimony now.
Henry C. DeForest, pioneer merchant of Wetmore, was made custodian of the impounded land. He also acted as agent for Mrs. Campbell. The allowance for the boy was not held down strictly to the court order. Indeed, Mr. Campbell did much more for his son. It is alleged that, after the separation, the boy would meet the train on occasions of his father’s infrequent trips in from the West, and that Mr. Campbell would fill his son’s hat with gold coins. And in time Charley was given the impounded land, together with several other valuable tracts of Jackson County land. Green Campbell still kept his Nemaha County homestead.
No property settlement appears of record—leastwise my investigator does not report any—though, I believe, there was a private settlement. Little enough it was, no doubt, if any, but the disillusioned Mr. Campbell was not niggardly with his money, as the plaintiff and her kin backers, and all who listened in on the trial were soon to know.