Hugh placed a pair of stone plaques above the door, inscribing one with his name and the other with the coat of arms of the Duke of Argyll and Chief of Clan Campbell in Scotland.

Robert was offered the position of assistant clerk, working the winter at Bellevue on the Missouri River (near present-day Omaha, Nebraska).

"[2] Campbell joined fur trader Jedediah S. Smith in an expedition leaving St. Louis for the Rocky Mountains on November 1, 1825.

With the financial backing of William H. Ashley and his Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Smith assembled a group of sixty men, including experienced explorers and traders Hiram Scott, Jim Beckwourth, Moses Harris, and Louis Vasquez.

Campbell's initial journey into the American west included a harsh winter spent with Pawnee tribesmen south of the Republican River.

After the spring thaw, the group traveled north of the Platte River to the traders' Rendezvous in Cache Valley, in modern Utah and southern Idaho.

Campbell traveled with the Jackson/Sublette party, and later wrote that the group "…hunted along the forks of the Missouri, following the Gallatin, and trapped along across the headwaters of the Columbia.

Traveling slowly due to harsh weather, they arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company camp of Peter Skene Ogden on the Snake River in February 1828.

After the summer trading, Campbell joined Jim Bridger in a trapping expedition to Crow country in northeastern Wyoming, wintering in the Wind River area.

Sublette even agreed to an odd relationship for the first year, making Robert a lieutenant but having him purchase his own goods for rendezvous, using the sale of this merchandise as the stake he needed to officially join the business.

As the rendezvous at Pierre's Hole was breaking up, a group of Gros Ventres (sometimes mistaken as Blackfeet), who had been dogging the trappers as they arrived, bumped into a trapping brigade as it left the valley, sparking a full-fledged battle.

The Gros Ventres built quick fortifications out of downed logs as trapper reinforcements arrived, commencing a day-long siege.

Both men led a charge on the Indian defenses, with Robert at one point believing he had been wounded, and Sublette taking a bullet in the arm.

Although he rarely had much cash on hand, he was financially sound enough to purchase a large tract of land in what is today Kansas City's downtown.

An economic crisis in the 1840s threatened to ruin Campbell, but the timely influx of cash from Scottish Laird (Lord) Sir William Drummond Stewart, a good friend, prevented much worse.

Thus, when the Mexican–American War broke out in 1846, Robert was appointed a state militia colonel charged with raising and outfitting 400 cavalry volunteers.

Victory for the United States enabled Campbell to begin expanding his business into the American Southwest along the El Paso Trail.

[15] Living in Missouri in the American Civil War required a delicate balancing act between pro-Southern and Unionist forces and interests.

The disruption of Mississippi River traffic slowed business, and even when it had reopened, the government sometimes requisitioned Robert's ships.

In 1871, the Campbell business empire extended all the way to El Paso, Texas, where Robert purchased land at a bankruptcy auction.

Miners would send Robert gold dust, which he would then ship east to Stuart & Brothers of Philadelphia to be converted into coinage.

Robert's connections to Grant, coupled with his extensive experience with the Native American tribes of the West, led to his appointment in 1869 to the Board of Indian Commissioners.

Campbell travelled through the west, meeting various tribes including the Ute, Cherokee, and the Oglala chief Red Cloud.

The commissioners ultimately recommended that the Native Americans be assimilated into white society, encouraging the abolition of tribal sovereignty and more extensive cultural retraining.

A particularly bad attack afflicted him during a dinner party for General William Sherman, forcing Robert to be confined to his bed for a month.

Robert joyfully asked permission from her mother, Lucy Ann Winston Kyle, who refused, declaring that Virginia was too young at the age of 16 to be married.

In what was undoubtedly a heartfelt letter for Robert, he consented even as he wrote, "You have blighted the happiness through life of a heart that loved only you."

The owners of the property took a number of loans that they were unable to pay back, resulting in the land being seized in 1847 and put up for sale.

Other family members, including Eleanor Otey (Virginia's sister) and several of Robert's Irish relations, also resided at the house for various periods.

[28][failed verification] The three surviving children never married and remained at the Campbell House at 20 Lucas Place (now 1508 Locust St) until the death of the final son in 1938.