He was a pupil of James Ross, a celebrated teacher of Philadelphia, and at an early age entered the University of Pennsylvania, but was never graduated.
Ezra Stiles, and afterward in Virginia, where he was for a few months teacher of languages in Hampden-Sydney College.
Dr. Balch, of Georgetown, District of Columbia, and in 1825 accepted a call to the pastorate of Second Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., where Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, as well as Vice President John C. Calhoun, worshipped in the 1820s.
Appointed Secretary of War by Jackson, John Eaton and his wife became a social controversy.
[1] On November 18, 1820, 22-year-old Presbyterian minister John Nicholson Campbell was named Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives.