Revolutionary War Soldiers Series: Remembering William Bell Jr.

By Waw-wil-a-way Chapter DAR 
and Southern Ohio Genealogical Society 

William Bell Jr. was born 28 May 18, 1763, in Delaware and died Nov. 18, 1801 in Greenfield, Highland County, Ohio. He is buried in the Greenfield Cemetery.

William served in the 1st New Jersey Regiment under Capt. Mathias Ogden and again under Capt. John Stokes. 

He married Mary Brady about 1785. Their known children were Joseph, Josiah, Charles, Mearia and Sarah. The three sons are documented in the NSDAR database.
     
J.W. Klise writes, ”In 1800, John Coffey, Lewis Lutteral, Samuel Schooley, Joseph Palmer, James Furry, James Milligan and William Bell came to Greenfield and began house building and other improvements with the view of permanent settlement. 

Mr. Bell died the following spring, leaving a wife and six children, three sons and three daughters. The sons all married and remained in Greenfield, and in the course of a few years were the leading businessmen in the town. 

Joseph and Charles were the first blacksmiths, and Josiah was the first hatter in the town. They all saved money, and quitting their old industries, engaged in the dry goods business and became the prominent merchants in the town. Joseph removed from Greenfield to Washington, Fayette County, where death found him in 1854.

The Julianna White Chapter of NSDAR placed a Revolutionary War veteran's marker at his monument in the Greenfield Cemetery on June 30, 1923. He was the second person and the first adult person to be buried in the Old Burial ground in Greenfield in 1801. Years later, his remains were reinterred in the New Greenfield Cemetery.

A direct relationship to the C.S. Bell family who arrived in Highland County in the 1850s has not been established.

– Submitted by Patricia Young, Waw-wil-a-way Chapter, NSDAR. Source: History of Highland County, Klise; NSDAR database.