He first entered Kentucky University but finished his course at Bethany College in 1873.
Campbell, who in 1829 had been elected to the Constitutional Convention of Virginia by his anti-slavery neighbours, now established The Millennial Harbinger (1830-1865), in which, on Biblical grounds, he opposed emancipation, but which he used principally to preach the imminent Second Coming, which he actually set for 1866, in which year he died, on the 4th of March, at Bethany, West Virginia, having been for twenty-five years president of Bethany College.
The township was formed from parts of Waterbury, Bethany and Oxford, and was incorporated in 1844; the borough was chartered in 1893; and the two were combined in 1895.
There is little doubt that the name is introduced simply as part of the parable, and not with any idea of identifying the beggar with Lazarus of Bethany.
Here He learned of the sickness of Lazarus, and presently He returned and came to Bethany to raise him from the dead.