An athlete lettering in baseball and soccer as well as a welterweight boxing champion, Campbell later studied theology at the General Theological Seminary, and subsequently received several honorary degrees, including from Concord College in Athens, West Virginia.

[1] His elder brother Hugh Brown Campbell became a lawyer and judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Between 1935 and 1943, he served parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island: St. Stephen's Church, Port Washington; St. Luke's, Sea Cliff, 1936–39; and All Saints', Brooklyn.

[2] In 1950, a year after West Virginia's bishop Robert E. L. Strider Sr. had announced that he would retire in 1955, Rev.

Campbell served for several years as vicar of St. Martins in the Fields Episcopal Church in Summerville, West Virginia.