Colin Campbell, who was the son of Malcolm and Mary’s son John, wrote this family memoir in 1965.
 
     Whenever we think of pioneers we naturally feel they belong to the category of the heroic with a faith in the future, though with some uncertainty, yet with the steadfastness of purpose and perhaps influenced by unfavorable circumstances, they dare to face a future that is new and untried, but nevertheless appealing to the brave spirit that is willing to make the great adventure.
     In this class, none more fittingly live up to the picture we have in mind, than those brave souls, who in the early years of the nineteenth century, left home and kindred and made their way to the new land of which we are so proud - our beloved Canada.
     In the year 1844 Malcolm Campbell and his wife Mary, decided to make the great venture. Mary was hesitant about the change but Malcolm had a vision of possibilities, impossible of fulfillment in Scotland, and so on a never to be forgotten day the little family embarked on a sailing vessel bound for Canada. On board there were no comforts and the speed of modern steamers was unheard of; in fact the ship was the immigrants home for many weeks and even months. Storms were encountered and to add to their worries, just as the ship was ready to sail, little John was found to be missing. A frantic search finally located the boy hiding behind some packing cases on the dock.
     After some seven weeks of sailing they were finally landed on Canadian soil and began a slow and tedious journey to Ingersoll Ontario, where Mary's brothers John and William Dunn had located a few years earlier.
     Here their daughter Margaret was born and they might have settled permanently in the Ingersoll district, but with little money to buy land, Malcolm decided to go still further and investigate the Huron Tract, which the Canada Company was opening up for settlement at the time. He and his brother-in-law William Dunn made the trip on foot, a distance of seventy miles or more and after careful thought decided on a farm south and east of the village of Bayfield, a distance of about four miles and here the struggle for the new life began.
     A little shack was erected in the clearing and served as a shelter, until one unfortunate day while chopping down a tree, Malcolm whose axemanship was still in the amateur stage, felled the tree on the building, with disastrous results, one being the smashing of all the crockery and china, brought with such care from the home in Scotland.
     A new home was built, but this was later destroyed by fire. It was replaced about 1872 by the frame house now occupied by Ted Dunn (1965), (no relation).
     The difficulties of pioneer farming were many and great. First the land had to be cleared of its trees, before anything else could be done, so that during the first years, the acreage for planting was small. Diseases such as rust and smut were a threat to the growing grain; also the birds which attacked the wheat in the ripening stage caused great loss. Frost too sometimes injured the slow ripening grain. In the early days before the boys were old enough to help, actual starvation sometimes threatened the settlers. On one occasion the seed potatoes had to be dug up for food. Another time the flour barrel was practically empty and Malcolm walked all the way to Goderich - a distance of seventeen miles, - only to find there was no flour to be had. On returning to Bayfield the miller there measured him out a small amount which he was loath to spare. In the meantime, little John at home was hungry so his mother scraped the barrel and was able to make him a little cake.
     As time went on the older boys, John and James, brought up in the bush, became adept with the axe and many an acre was cleared by these strong young Canadians. Community life began with the logging bees and as the land was cleared wheat became the staple crop, harvested with the cradle and hand rake.
     Money became more plentiful and due to industry, hard work and clean living, several farms were added to the homestead and a fair realization of the original dreams of the future came true.
     It would not be fair to leave out the part played by religion in all this; and when a building for divine worship was erected in the bush the Campbells were rarely absent on a Sabbath morning.
     Such was the experience of many in that day and we today are proud to refer back to this man and this woman as Grandfather and Grandmother Campbell.