Jabez P. Campbell was born free in Slaughter Neck, Sussex County, Delaware on February 5, 1815.

[8] Bishop Morris Brown assigned Campbell to preach in the Frankford and Berks County circuits in Pennsylvania.

[4] Jabez Campbell continued his religious service as a pastor in Baltimore and Philadelphia until May 1864, when he was elected eighth bishop of the AME church.

Campbell requested in a letter the bodies of two persons, Shields Green and John Copeland, in the event that they would be hanged, from the Governor of Virginia.

Campbell and his wife Mary both had life memberships to the Board of Managers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons, an institution located in west Philadelphia.

Although he gave money to various institutions, the biggest recipients were Wilberforce University and Jabez Pitt Campbell College, in Jackson, Mississippi.

[12] Campbell was part of the American Colonization Society (ACS), an institution that encouraged the return of free African-Americans to Africa.

[13] He also participated in the Colored National Convention held in Franklin Hall, Sixth Street, below Arch, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 16, 17 and 18, 1855.