My Genealogy Hound

William H. Bell. Among the prominent men of Sebastian County, Ark., who have throughout life been honest tillers of the soil, may be mentioned the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He was born in Henderson County, Tenn., September 7, 1834, being the fifth of ten children born to the marriage of Henry P. and Susannah (Holmes) Bell. The father was born in Wayne Count, N. C., in 1797, and was first married to Mrs. Susan Shadden, nee Holmes, by whom he had two sons and one daughter. He moved with her to Tennessee, where she afterward died. He resided in that State until 1839, when he moved to Arkansas, and located in Johnson County, and ten years later took up his abode in Sebastian County, where he spent the remainder of his days, dying in 1863, and his wife in 1869. He became a prosperous farmer, and he and both his wives were active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In early life he was a Democrat, but afterward became a Whig. Their son, William H., was reared chiefly in Johnson County, Ark., where he received rather limited educational advantages, but has since made good the deficiency by reading and private study. He remained with and assisted his father until he was twenty-one years of age, then engaging in farming, which occupation he has followed up to the present time, with the exception of a few terms of school which he taught. In 1860 he was married to Nancy J. Johnson, a daughter of James and Jane D. (Tilman) Johnson. She was born in Bradley County, Tenn., February 24, 1839, and was brought to Sebastian County when about twelve years of age, where she met and married Mr. Bell, by whom she became the mother of three children: Charles W., John W. and James H. Charles is preparing for the medical profession, and the other two are farmers. Mr. Bell served in the late war, first as first sergeant and afterward as second lieutenant, company H, Second Arkansas Calvary Volunteers, and after the close of the war was a captain in Col. John F. Wheeler’s regiment of Arkansas State Militia. He is a Republican in politics, and owns 180 acres of good land, with sixty-five under cultivation, all of which he has made by his own exertions. He and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.