Greenbrier County, West Virginia Biography of HENRY THOMAS BELL This biography was submitted by Sandy Spradling, E-mail address: This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm History of Greenbrier County J. R. Cole Lewisburg, WV 1917 p. 158-160 HENRY THOMAS BELL. Henry Thomas Bell was educated by private teachers and at the high school in Lexington, Va. In 1876 he came to Lewisburg and first clerked for his uncle, Johnston E. Bell. Subsequently, he established the Greenbrier Clothing Store, still continued under the management of R. P. Bell, making an ownership in the family of over thirty years. Henry T. Bell was twice married, first to Miss Louisa Epps Walton, daughter of Dr. R. P. Walton and Mary Jemima Woodson, of Cumberland, Va. The children by this marriage were: Walton Henry, born April 13, '889; Richard Peyton, September 10, 1890; Martha Alexander, May 27, 1892; Mary Linton, February 6, 1894. Mr. Bell married for his second wife Mrs. Lucy McRae Walton, of Vicksburg, by whom there was no issue. Her father's name was William Allen McRae and her mother's name, Indiana Hawkins Rozell, both of Richmond, Va. Henry Walton Bell married, October i8, 1915, Mary Elizabeth Noel. Her father was John A. Noel and her mother Ohio Montgomery Jackson, of Pocahontas county, West Virginia. Henry T. Bell was a deacon and treasurer of the Old Stone Presbyterian Church for twenty-three years and was a member of the Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Masons, Greenbrier Lodge, No.42. He was a man of very fine character. The following article from the Greenbrier Independent, at the time of his death, best describes the character of the man: "In touching upon such a life one knows hardly where to begin. There are those who would think of him first as husband and father in the home. There was never nobler or truer. His widow, his four children, who survive him, his brother and his sisters, know how truly he lived for others and how overflowingly kind his heart always was. To him there was no place like home, and a happier, more carefree home no man ever made. "There are those who would think of him as the man of affairs -as leading his community, as attending to business, as entering with hearty fellowship into the social groups and gatherings of his generation. He inevitably drew men to him. Perhaps he was never conscious of it, but men leaned upon him for advice and for counsel. He had a gift for conciliation, for initiative, for securing results. He loved his fellows as he lived among them, and the wide circle of his coworkers is the poorer today that he walks among them no more in active participation. "And always there are those who would think of him as a Christian. To the end he was trusting and unafraid. In the last hours he hore quiet testimony to the faith that had been his through a lifetime of service in his church. As treasurer of his congregation for over twenty years he was unexcelled. Acctirate, courteous, prompt-he met each exacting demand with a full measure of grace and ability. His associates in official responsibility will bear undivided testimony to his worth in every call through years of patient continuance in well doing. And those who knew him best were not surprised when in the last long struggle with death he made a record never surpassed for quiet courage on a battlefield. Seventeen times during the waiting months he bore the surgeon's knife, until that physician was moved to cry in irrepressible admiration, 'Here was the supremest type of courage I have ever known.' To him life was worth living, and there were hundreds who prayed that he might live. And yet against God's will there was never a moment's rebellion in his heart. He strove for life earnestly that by life he might glorify God, but he died una-fraid, for in death God would glorify him with that glory which has been since before the world was. A great heart-a noble man-a faithful servant of his day and generation-an humble follower of his King. All these and more he was. Our hearts are sore for his going, but our lives are made the better for his memory, 'God's noblest gift to men-a man.