William N. Campbell is the senior member of the firm of Chambers & Campbell, hardware merchants of Redding, California. He was born in Sacramento, October 25, 1865. His father, W.L. Campbell, a native of Ohio, born in 1838, was for many years the manager of a large hardware business in Sacramento. He married Miss Alice Hatch, daughter of John Hatch, who crossed the plains with his family in 1849. His daughter Alice was one of the first white children there. He opened and conducted the pioneer jewelry business of that city.

The subject of this sketch is the only son in a family of three children. He was reared and educated in Sacramento; was a page in the State House during the Constitutional Convention and in the Assembly for two terms. At the age of sixteen years he entered the house of Huntington, Hopkins & Co., and was with them until he was twenty-two. Mr. Campbell and his partner, Mr. Chambers, are cousins and have been together all their lives. They were engaged in the cattle business in Butte County for two years. In 1888 they came to Redding and purchased their present hardware store from Garrett, Lyon & Co., and are doing a large business, their trade extending 275 miles toward the north, in several of the northern counties and also into Oregon.

Mr. Campbell is secretary of the Parlor of Native Son of the Golden West, and is also a member of the National Guard of California. He is a bright, active and obliging business man and is bound to succeed.

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler, August 2004.
SOURCE: Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1891. pg. 361