82. Mary Ann Campbell

I have a student named Mary Ann Campbell on my rolls for the Mordecai school. She was there for both sessions in 1811. No hometown; but a James Campbell is shown paying tuition during 1811, for music, drawing, and painting (extras taught by non-Mordecai family members).

All of Mary Ann Campbell's name is fairly common; there were a lot of Scottish-American families in Virginia and North Carolina in the 1810s. But wait--there was a Col. James Campbell who heled establish the Leaksville branch of the State Bank of North Carolina in 1818. Many of the other families affiliated with the school were also involved in banking--George Mordecai himself would eventually be a Raleigh-based director of the State Bank. Col. James Campbell of Leaksville (now Eden) married a Sophia Spencer in 1821--but that could be a second wife.

(There's a weird story about a family of Campbells in Leaksville; sometime in the early 19c., "they bought some beef that happened to be unwholesome....the entire family were severely stricken, and the young man David was the only one that lived.")

Well, maybe Mary Ann Campbell was from Leaksville, or not. It's hard to say. But of course I hope she wasn't one of the food-poisoned Campbells there.