William Campbell, a daring American patriot born in central Virginia in 1745, established his plantation, Aspenvale, on this land in the 1760s. During the campaign that ended at Kings Mountain, his fellow militia colonels elected him to serve as the patriot commander. At the Battle of Kings Mountain in October 1780, Colonel Campbell rallied his militia with the cry, "Shout like hell, and fight like devils!" and the British never recovered. On April 2, 1776, he married Elizabeth Henry, the sister of Patrick Henry, and they had two children. Virginia promoted Campbell to brigadier general in 1781, but he died suddenly a few months later on August 22 at only 36 years old. The stone-fenced Aspenvale family cemetery, among the oldest in western Virginia, also contains the grave of Campbell's mother, Margaret, who was buried there in 1777. William Campbell's grave is a certified site of the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, a 330-mile route through Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, authorized by Congress in 1980 and administered by the National Park Service with many partners to trace the patriot campaign that led to the battle of Kings Mountain.