John Bell I (1679 - 1743)

Born 1679 in Ballymoney, Antrim, Ulster, Ireland

Husband of Elizabeth (Todd) Bell — married 1712 in Ulster, Ireland [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 8 Jul 1743 at about age 64 in Londonderry, Rockingham, New Hampshire

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WARNING

THIS PROFILE AND LINKS TO IT ARE AN ATTEMPT TO SORT OUT THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY

Weeks, Lyman Horace, The Bell family in America, New York, W.M. Clemens, 1913, p. 17.

Biography

John Bell I is a member of Clan Bell.

Weeks, 1913, p. 6, has:

John Bell the youngest son of Matthew Bell of Scotland and Ireland was bom in Ballymoney, county Antrim, province of Ulster, Ireland, in 1679, and married, about 1712, Elizabeth Todd, daughter of John and Eachel (Nelson) Todd, and sister of Andrew Todd; she was born about 1689. He came to America, as is supposed, in 1719, landed at Boston and spent some time in Andover, Mass., before he settled in Londonderry, N. H., in 1720. He held a number of town offices, and died July 8, 1743, "about sixty-four years of his age" ,as his tombstone says. He had nine children, of whom six left descendants.

Note: There are two profiles for John Bell, born c1679. This profile is part of the collaborative, global WikiTree. See Bell-1886 for a profile based solely on information on The Bell Family in America, by Lyman Horace Weeks (1913).

Gen & Pers Hist of Fayette Co PA, pp.252:
(1) The father of the Pennsylvania emigrant was Matthew Bell, born at Kirk, Scotland (there are seven places of this name in Scotland). He emigrated to Ireland prior to the seige of Londonderry, 1690, and was one of the defenders of the city during that famous period. He had two sons, Matthew and John, both founders of American families. John settled in New Hampshire, 1719, died in Londonderry, New Hampshire, July 8, 1743. He married, in Ireland, Elizabeth Todd, of Scotland. He was the ancestor of three governors of New Hampshire, three United States senators, one representative to congress and two judges of the New Hampshire supreme court.

John Bell of Londonderry, pp.1-4:
JOHN BELL, the immigrant ancestor of our family, was born in the Parish of Ballymoney, near Coleraine, County Antrim, Ireland, in the year 1678. He emigrated to this Country in 1719 to join the just formed Scotch-Irish colony in Londonderry, New Hampshire. [These dates are on the authority of a note in the Ulster Journal of Archeology, 1895.] He certainly was not of the first little group of emigrants who, coming from about Londonderry, Ireland, late in 1718, originally settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, in April, 1719, but he must have joined them very soon, since his homestead was granted in 1720.

The original tract was of sixty acres, in Aiken's range. It lay about a mile northwest of what is now Derry Lower Village, on the present main road to Londonderry and Manchester, and within the bounds of the present town of Derry. It was later extended to three hundred acres, and for more than a century remained in the family. Early the next year he was granted, in company with WIlliam and James Aiken, Andrew Todd, John Wallace and Benjamin Wilson, saw-mill rights on Aiken's Brook with an adjacent acre of land for the mill yard.

Lest the proprietors should profiteer, the thrifty Scots of the settlement stipulated that the inhabitants of the town should have the refusal of boards on hand at thirty shillings per thousand feet, or for sawing alone should be charged fifteen shillings per thousand. The same year he was appointed one of the surveyors of the town, and helped build the first meeting house.

He cleared ground for his home, built a log cabin upon it, appears in the records of 1722 as one of the chartered proprietors, and in that year returned to Ireland and brought back with him his wife and two daughters, Letitia and Naomi, whom he had left pending the preparation of a home for them in the new country. These daughters were small children at the time; and although the date of John Bell's marriage is not of record, it was probably about 1610.

His wife, Elizabeth Todd, was the daughter of James Todd and Rachel Nelson, and was born in the Western Isles of Scotland. Her family was evidently of substance, two of her brothers being graduates of Edinburgh University. By tradition she was a woman of great energy and capacity, blonde, with the conspicuously red hair associated generally with Keltic blood, and which has come down now to the fifth generation of her descendants. The story is told of her that on this voyage over in 1722 the Captain of the ship got drunk and went into delirium tremens. In this emergency Mrs. Bell, who was the only other person aboard who knew anything of navigation, performed the then somewhat slender duties of navigating officer for the remainder of the voyage.

Four children were born to John and Elizabeth Bell, after their settlement in Londonderry; Samuel, September 28, 1723; Elizabeth, December 28, 1725; Mary, January 25, 1727-8; and John, August 15, 1730.

John Bell seems to have been a useful and substantial citizen of Londonderry, often trusted with serious responsibilities for the town. He was for years a member of the committee having charge of the regulation and distribution of the meadow lands in the town, and in 1733 was appointed one of the proprietors' committee on titles and law suits which might arise from them. He was one of the "surveyors" for his part of the town up to substantially the end of his life, and in 1737 was elected Selectman, although for some unknown reason he apparently did not serve out his term.

Around him on his wide acres grew up his children, of whom John eventually succeeded to the paternal estate in Londonderry. . . .

John Bell, the immigrant, died July 8, 1743, leaving his extremely efficient widow, who survived until 1771, and her two young sons to carry on the homestead. The four daughters, growing up, all married Duncans, three of them brothers.

Tradition has it that after acquiring three Duncan sons-in-law the widow Elizabeth felt need of a change; and when her youngest was swung upon a pillion by the last available Duncan and they bolted for the parson's, Mrs. Bell saddled her horse and set out in furious pursuit. The fugitives, however, got around a turn of the road, jumped their horse behind a friendly wood-pile, and, after the irate mother-in-law-elect had passed, doubled on their course and were married, quite probably by the Rev. Ebenezer Flagg of Chester, who had a wide reputation for assisting in such impromptu nuptials. A genial and hospitable Dominie, doubtless, was the Rev. Ebenezer, since in an old account book of the Chester village store I found him charged with twenty-eight quarts of "Rhom" (W.I. & N.E.) within the short space of thirty days.

The Bell Family in America, p. 6:
John Bell the youngest son of Matthew Bell of Scotland and Ireland was bom in Ballymoney, county Antrim, province of Ulster, Ireland, in 1679, and married, about 1712, Elizabeth Todd, daughter of John and Eachel (Nelson) Todd, and sister of Andrew Todd; she was born about 1689. He came to America, as is supposed, in 1719, landed at Boston and spent some time in Andover, Mass., before he settled in Londonderry, N. H., in 1720. He held a number of town offices, and died July 8, 1743, "about sixty-four years of his age" ,as his tombstone says. He had nine children, of whom six left descendants.

Sources

• Weeks, 1913
• http://www.geni.com/people/John-Bell/6000000008538866239
• Joe Sneed, firsthand knowledge. See the [https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=Bell-1886
• http://person.ancestry.com/tree/55118468/person/13769087672/facts
  Doubtful source

References

Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County Pennsylvania, Volume 1, John Woolf Jordan, James Hadden, Lewis historical publishing Company, Fayette County (Pa.), 1912. [1]

John Bell of Londonderry and His Scottish Ancestry, Louis Bell, 1920. [2]

The Bell Family in America, Lyman Horace Weeks, 1913. [3]

See also: Weeks, Lyman Horace The Bell Family in America (William M. Clemens, New York, 1913),