The author of a book detailing his family’s history and the beginnings of Ironton will be part of the Vesuvius Furnace Festival this weekend.

Dr. James A. Campbell has written “Home Forgotten: The Campbells of the North River.”

Campbell describes the book as “ a whole new way of seeing John and Hiram Campbell as an extension of the larger family from which they came.”

James Campbell is a frequent visitor to Ironton. He has been researching and writing “Home Forgotten” for 30 years. He discovered that he is an indirect descendant of

the man who founded Ironton since he is the great-great-grandson of Washington G. Campbell, brother to Hiram and John Milton Campbell.

John Campbell was the founder of Ironton. He and William Firmstone built the Vesuvius iron furnace, which was one of the first hot blast furnaces in America and help build Lawrence County into one of the biggest producers of steel before the Civil War.

James Campbell is a Methodist missionary to Alaska where is a pastor at the Turn Again Methodist Church in Anchorage.

In “Home Forgotten,” Campbell said in an e-mail, that Ironton plays an important role in political history, industrial history, river history and abolition history.

“It is also a family history and in that family history are connections that help bring it together,” he said.

James Campbell will be signing copies of “Home Forgotten” during the Vesuvius Furnace Festival on Saturday. Copies are $39, which is $10 off the regular price.

He will also be speaking in the Hamner Room at the Briggs Lawrence County Public Library on Monday at 9 a.m. He will also sign copies of his book then.

There are only 300 copies in the run.