Arthur Campbell Tombstone

A modern headstone marks the gravesite of Fincastle militia officer and western settler Arthur Campbell, located in Middlesboro, Kentucky, near Cumberland Gap State Park. Campbell’s will directed that he be buried at Gideon’s Tenement near Cumberland. In 1890, some workers constructing a hotel rediscovered the Campbell family grave site. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. War Department requested that the grave be relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee. Middlesboro and some Campbell descendants did not acquiesce, however, and Campbell’s grave remains where, as the May 22, 1890, issue of the Middlesborough News described it, “in this mountain locked valley in a mound in one of the richest savannas on earth the old soldier was laid to rest.”