In 1827 he left Weston on a horse to travel to Wythe County, where he read law at the private law school established by General Alexander Smyth, who had fought in the War of 1812, served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, and for whom Smyth County, Virginia would be named.

Camden invested heavily in real estate, as well as worked to develop roads, railroads and energy resources in western Virginia, including as President of the Northwestern Turnpike.

[9] Gideon Camden later won election as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, representing Doddridge, Wetzel, Harrison, Tyler, Wood and Ritchie counties alongside fellow lawyers and investors Joseph Johnson, John F. Snodgrass and Peter G. Van Winkle.

[15] (in the 1870 federal census, Camden's household included (in addition to his family) a 55 year old black woman and two children, an 11-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl.

Meanwhile, voters in what became West Virginia elected William A. Harrison to succeed Gideon Camden as the circuit judge for Harrison and surrounding counties, and Camden's son-in-law, Caleb Boggess (1822–1889), who had been another delegate to the Secession Convention but left before its adjournment, and later (after the death of Judge George Hay Lee) became the chief counsel in West Virginia for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

[18] Following the end of the disfranchisement of former Confederates in West Virginia in 1870, Camden successfully ran to represent Harrison County in the state Senate.

By the time of his death, he was one of the wealthiest men in the state, having 60,000 acres of real estate, including lands with coal, oil and timber resources.