Biography of William J Bell, Independence Co, AR

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SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas. 
Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889.
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page 642

Dr. William J. Bell is a prominent medical practitioner of Independence County,
and was born in the State of Alabama, February 17, 1835. He was the second born
in the family of six children of Wesley and Elizabeth (Bell) Bell. Wesley Bell,
who was a native of South Carolina, was born in 1808; he was of English
descent, and was a mechanic and farmer. When a young man he removed from South
Carolina to Alabama, where he married and resided until about 1840, when he
located in the western part of Tennessee, subsequently, on account of ill
health, removing to Arkansas, where he died in 1857. His wife, who was also a
native of South Carolina, was born in 1812, and died about 1847. The paternal
grandfather of our subject was John Bell, who served during the Revolutionary
War, and died at the advanced age of ninety-seven years, his wife living to be
eighty-five years of age. William J. received the advantages of a common school
education in Lawrence County, Ark., and in 1857 began the study of medicine; in
1858 he attended a course of medical lectures in Memphis, Tenn., and the
following year entered upon the active practice of his chosen profession in the
neighborhood where he now resides. He is now one of the leading physicians of
Independence County, and has built up an extensive practice, answering calls at
a distance of thirty or forty miles. Dr. Bell owns 305 acres of land, all of
which is under cultivation; sixty-five acres lie on the White River bottom, and
the balance, where he resides, about eleven miles west of the county seat. June
16, 1868, he married Miss Christina McFarland, who was born in Independence
County, in 1846, being a daughter of Alexander G. and Sarah J. McFarland, early
settlers of the county. Dr. and Mrs. Bell have six children, viz.: Clete A.,
James E., Ida V., Vertula A., William E. and Ross A. The parents are both
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Dr. Bell has been a member of
the Masonic fraternity since 1859, and is also a member of the I. O. O. F.,
both of which orders he has at various times represented in the Grand Lodge. In
polities he is in sympathy with the Democratic party.