William Campbell: The Man Who Carved His Own Tombstone in 1758

William Campbell: The Man Who Carved His Own Tombstone in 1758

On May 4, 1758, William Campbell died, but his tombstone was already finished. Tucked inside Mount Bethel Cemetery in Columbia—Lancaster County’s oldest continually operating burial ground—sits a small slate marker that’s easy to walk past. It doesn’t rise high. It doesn’t boast titles or lineage. But it tells one of the most unsettling stories in the cemetery. According to long-standing local tradition, Campbell was a fur trapper who lived and …