On or about the year 1849, John Campbell, his wife Mary, and sons James, Hiram and Joseph transferred his milling operations in Bradford county to his son John, Jr. and moved into Forks Township, Sullivan County. Searching out a spot for the erection of a new gristmill, he selected a location at the union of Level Branch and Lick Creek. Thereupon he purchased seventeen and a half acres for the sum of thirty-seven and one half dollars US from Thomas Coggins.

Immediately John began construction of his new gristmill and a covered bridge across Level Branch to serve the milling needs of the farmers in the area. The mill was constructed with a "turbine driven shaft" which is located below water at the center of the edge of the mill. It was driven by a gate and sluice allowing the water to race past it and drive the vertical shaft. John Campbell once said, "In the fall when farmers would bring their grain to be milled, a joyous time was had." as farmers waited their turn, which may have taken a day or two. The covered bridge was built by the "Burr Truss" method, first introduced in 1804 and patented in 1817. Old records show that Campbell did not always receive cash. Instead he would take a percentage of the crop to be milled--usually a fifth to an eighth depending on the type of milling wanted, such as flour, corn meal, bran, cream of wheat, etc.

A small village soon developed with the mill as the nucleus and it was called Campbellville for the owner of the mill. At that time, there was one house already there (formerly a logging cabin,) the first to be built in the area. That house is now over 200 years old and still inhabited by the Litzelman's. A cluster of houses was built along with a schoolhouse, a general store and post office. On 8 January 1851, John Campbell was made the first US Postmaster of Campbellville.

A current picture of the site of the old school is shown at the top of this page. Many local families attended this one-room schoolhouse through the end of the 1800s. In the Kelly family alone, Regis, Willie, Francis, Florence, Alice, Raymond Jerome, Julia and James all attended. There were children named Kester, Bahl, Keeney and others too. Miss Agnes Leahy was their school teacher. The mill and covered bridge would have been immediately just around the curve going down Kelly Hill Road in the picture. The building (at the same location and with the same size as the schoolhouse ground floor) is a summer residence now.

Some of the residents over the first fifty years were: John & Mary Campbell, James H. Campbell, Hiram M. & Hannah B. Campbell, 2^nd Postmaster, Robert Warburton, 4^th Postmaster, Joseph Campbell, Wilson R. Campbell, 5^th Postmaster, William Campbell, 6^th Postmaster, M. Warburton, 7^th Postmaster, Hiram L. Campbell, Powell Norton, 8^th Postmaster, Watson & Ada (Bedford) Fawcett, Thomas R. & Josie Wank, John & Sara Wank and daughter Laura, Mr. & Mrs. Henry Wank, James Hart (who died there in 1880), Mr. & Mrs. John Fleming and their daughter Melvia.

In 1902, a flood washed away the mill which led to the demise of the village over time. During the first half of the 1900's, a resident was burning brush near the edge of the surrounding woods and caught the woods on fire, which burned the general store and some of the houses. In 1954-55 the covered bridge was auctioned off and sold to Otis and Florence Hatch of Forksville for $82.50.