Jabez Pitt Campbell

BACKGROUND: Bishop Campbell was born free in Slaughter Neck, Sussex County, DE, on February 5, 1815. Both his grandfathers were soldiers during the Revolutionary War, a rare occurrence, as there were only about 5,000 African Americans in the Continental Army. His father was Anthony Campbell, a Methodist preacher, and his mother was Catherine Campbell; both were members of the AME church. When Campbell was young, his father used him as collateral for a loan and left without paying it, putting Jabez at risk of being sold. This would lead to Campbell running away toward Pennsylvania to avoid being enslaved. Despite his efforts, Campbell was sold for a term of service; after serving four and a half years, he purchased the remaining two years of his time from his master, becoming his own master at age eighteen — driven, in his own words, by “an insatiable desire for a good education.” He married twice. His first marriage was to Stella Medley, on October 23, 1844; they had one child, Catherine Stella Campbell, born in 1852. Stella died in April 1854. His second marriage was to a widow by the name of Mary Ann Shire, on June 7, 1855, who had four children from her previous marriage. Campbell and Mary would have no children together. Campbell and his wife Mary held life memberships on the Board of Managers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons in West Philadelphia. He would die in Philadelphia on August 9, 1891, and funeral rites were held at Bethel Church at Sixth and Lombard, after which he was buried at Olive Cemetery in Philadelphia.

THEOLOGY: In 1833, Jabez Campbell joined Bethel Church in Philadelphia. Bishop Campbell was licensed to preach by Bishop Morris Brown at Bethel Church in Philadelphia. In 1840 he was sent to New England, where he was admitted to the New York Conference. He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Brown in Providence, RI, in 1841, and ordained an Elder by Bishop Brown in 1843. Some of his appointments were: Bucks Co., Bethel in Philadelphia, PA, Providence and New Bedford, New England, Albany, Hudson, Buffalo, and Bethel again, followed by pastorates in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He continued his pastoral service, including his tenure at Mother Bethel from 1862 to 1864, until May 1864, when he was elected the eighth bishop of the AME Church. As a new bishop, he established the Louisiana and California conferences in 1865, extending the denomination’s reach after the Civil War. In 1887, presiding over the North Carolina Annual Conference, Campbell ruled against the ordination of Sarah A. Hughes, the first woman ordained a deacon in the AME Church, removing her name from the conference’s list of deacons — a position consistent with the church’s 1888 General Conference resolution barring bishops from ordaining women to the diaconate or eldership.