- PETER BELL was a hard-working and upright farmer for many
years, and with his farming
- operations carried on his trade of stone mason. He is now
living a quiet and retired life at Albany, Green county, in the
enjoyment of a competence that represents industrious years and
patient saving.
- Mr. BELL was born in Clinton county, N.Y., Nov. 12, 1821,
and is a son of John and Effie
- (ASH) BELL, both natives of New York. They were the parents
of six children, of whom four are now living: Margaret, the widow
of Jeremiah BURBANK, of Castana, Iowa; Peter, of Albany, Wis.;
Joseph, of Bassett, Iowa; and Ann, wife of Amos BURBANK, of Castana,
Iowa. The father was a farmer, and came from New York to Wisconsin
in 1848, locating in the town of Magnolia, Rock county, where
he lived five years, when he removed to Dane county, where he
died in 1863, when nearly eighty-six years of age. His widow
survived him some four or five years, and was an esteemed member
of the Methodist Church. In his political faith he was a Democrat.
The father of John BELL, was a native of Holland, and died in
old age, leaving a large family. David ASH, the father of Effie
mentioned above, was a native farmer of New York, had a large
family, and died in old age. John BELL, father of our subject
had been twice married. By his first wife, who was a Miss VAN
HINING, he became the father of five children: Rowland, Henry,
Rebecca, Eva and Cornelius, of whom Rebecca and Eva still live
at the age of ninety-five and ninety-seven years, respectively.
- Peter BELL was a small child when his parents moved to Herkimer
county, N.Y., where they
- lived seven years. From that county they moved into Wayne
county, where his home was had until he came West. He attended
district school in Herkimer county, walking two and a half miles.
Mr. BELL was married March 1, 1849, to Miss Huldah MILLER, daughter
of David and Melvina (WOLVEN) MILLER. Mr. and Mrs. BELL became
the parents of four children, David Ansel, Maggie, Martha and
William. David Ansel died at the age of seven months. Maggie
married Francis ATKINSON, of Albany, and has one child, Francis.
Martha married Seth HEWITT, and lives at Arlington, S. Dak.;
they have two children, Effie and Ivan. William is a tinner by
trade, and lives at Rolfe, Iowa.
- Mr. and Mrs. BELL have been members of the Methodist Church
for fifty years. He has been
- trustee, class-leader and steward for many years, but the
increasing infirmities of old age, and his desire that younger
men should take up the work, have led him to resign. He belongs
to Erastus Hoyt Post, No. 69, G.A.R. He was a Republican from
the organization of the party until 1884, when he became a Prohibitionist,
and has continued in that political faith to the present time.
He was supervisor in Primrose township, Dane county, one year
before the war, and also served as justice of the peace three
years.
- In 1851 Mr. BELL came to Wisconsin, with his wife, by way
of the lakes, and located in Rock
- county, where he remained one year. He was two years in the
town of Sylvester, Green county, when he moved to Dane county,
where he and his brother Joseph bought a farm of two hundred
acres, which they cultivated until the breaking out of the Civil
war. Mr. BELL enlisted Aug. 14, 1862, in Company K, 33d Wis.
V.I., and served three years to a day. He was at the siege of
Vicksburg from its beginning to the triumphal entry of the conquering
troops into the city; under fire for nineteen days in the Red
River campaign; participated in the battle of Cane river; and
was present at the siege of Spanish Fort. In all, he was in fifteen
hard-fought battles and many skirmishes. In one of the skirmishes,
in pursuit of Gen. Hood in Tennessee, he lost the sight of one
of his eyes. Mr. BELL has followed stone mason and contract work
for the past thirty years. For twenty-seven years he has lived
in Albany, where he has a good home.
- David and Melvina (WOLVEN) MILLER, Mrs. BELL's parents, lived
in Ulster county, N.Y.,
- and came west to Wisconsin in the fall of 1854, and located
in the town of Mt. Pleasant, Green county, where he died in 1865,
at the age of seventy-one. His widow died in 1881, at the age
of eighty-six. Her served in the war of 1812 and his wife received
a pension after his demise. In religious belief they were both
Presbyterians. They reared eleven children, six of whom are now
living: Eliza, the wife of Franklin BENNETT, of Albany, a sketch
of whose life appears in this volume; Maria, wife of Luke EDWARDS,
of the town of Sylvester; Peter, of Albany; Huldah, the wife
of Peter BELL; Louis, now in the Rocky Mountains; and George,
of Iowa Falls. Mrs. BELL's paternal grandfather was David MILLER,
who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was taken prisoner
by the Indians; he was the father of a large family, and lived
to be about eighty years old. Mrs. Melvina (WOLVEN) MILLER was
a daughter of Zachariah WOLVEN, a native of New York, who died
before the Revolution.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin,"
(c)1901 Union Publishing; pp. 856-857.
-
- Courtesy of Carol.
|