Born in Kentucky, Benjamin Campbell crossed the plains to California in 1846 with his father, William, and helped him build the first sawmill in the county. In the spring of 1851 he bought land on what became Campbell Avenue and planted hay and grain.
His claim began as a squatter’s right and was fought over in the courts for eighteen years before he secured a federal patent for 160 acres. He married Mary Rucker on Christmas Day, 1851. In 1886 he gave the railroad an acre for a depot, and in 1887 he and Mary subdivided land to create a town. Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World called him the first permanent settler of the Hamilton District.