My Genealogy Hound

READ LETTS BELL, M. D., a surgeon on the Staff of the Mitchell Thomas Hospital at Springfield, stands high among his professional brethren in Clark County, of whose medical society he is a prominent member. He was born in Knox County, near the village of Utica, this State, December 8, 1849, and is the son of Jacob Bell, a substantial farmer, and a native of Greene County, Pa. Jacob Bell departed this life at his home near Utica, in 1874, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His wife, Mrs. Rachel (Letts) Bell, was a native of Washington County, Pa., and passed away in 1873, at her home near Utica, one year subsequent to the death her husband.

The paternal grandfather of our subject was Benjamin Bell, also a native of the Keystone State, and one of the early pioneers of Knox County, Ohio. He was a prominent man in his day, and one of the inaugurators of what was known through the southern part of the county as the Bell Settlement, which was composed largely of English and Irish families. On the mother’s side the grandparents of our subject were Nehemiah and Rhoda Letts, natives of Washington County, Pa., and who spent their last years in Knox County.

To the parents of our subject there was born a family of ten children, three of whom died in infancy. There are now living three sons and two daughters, making their homes mostly in Ohio. Read L. was next to the youngest of the family, and like his brothers and sisters received his primary education in the common school, and was reared on the farm. After completing his primary studies, he entered Denison University at Grandville, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1872, taking the degree of A. B., and later, in 1875, the degree of A. M.

In the meantime in the fall of 1872, Dr. Bell entered the medical department of Harvard University, at Boston, Mass., from which he was graduated in June, 1876, with the degree of M. D. In June, 1876, Dr. Bell was elected a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Then going to Toledo, he was made Secretary of the Toledo Medical Association, and held the position during the years 1876-77. About this time he was also elected to the Chair of Physiology and Anatomy in the Northwestern School of Medicine at Toledo.

Our subject located in Springfield on the 15th of October, 1877, and commenced the regular practice of his profession, to which he gives his entire attention, and in which he is meeting with uniform success. He was married July 18, 1877, to Miss Sarah J. Robinson, of Coshocton, Ohio. In May, 1889, he was elected President of the Clark County Medical Society, and in October following, President of the South-Western Ohio Medical Society.