October 25, 2026
The Champion name is attached to several strands of Belleville history: a nineteenth-century medicine business, a prominent family residence on Charles Street, and the descendants of Dr. Federal Champion and Patience Ann Treen. The story becomes clearer when those strands are connected carefully.
Dr. Champion came to Belleville in 1840, according to accounts published in 1847 and 1896. His medicines were made and sold here, and a later article remembered a pill factory on High Street. After his death, executors and a laboratory manager continued the medicine operation for a time.
The Charles Street house belongs to a later chapter. In 1855, the paper reported that B. F. Champion had built a large brick family residence there. B. F. was Benjamin Franklin Champion, known as Frank—the son whom the 1896 biography described as a St. Louis wholesale druggist. Later newspaper reports traced sales of the “Champion residence” to new owners. Those notices provide a compelling property trail, though deeds are needed to establish each legal transfer and confirm the precise link to the present address.
The family’s story reaches beyond buildings and business. The newspapers name Patience, their daughters Mary, Belle, Jane, and Maggie, and Frank, while another obituary indicates that at least one child is missing from the later list. Their marriages and descendants connect the Champions to other Belleville families and to the wider region.
The legacy is not one uninterrupted story about a single house. It is a set of connected histories—medicine, family, and place—each supported by different records. Keeping those distinctions clear lets the Champion name remain part of Belleville’s history without claiming more than the sources prove.
1896 family and business biography
1855 Charles Street building report
1864 sale of the Champion residence