Montgomery Bell Cemetery Clean-Up
Leads To History Lesson
From The Advocate: 12/02/00
By DALE GRAHAM
Last week I told you about Webelo Pack and Boy Scout Troop 594, who spent the weekend cleaning up the family cemetery of Montgomery Bell. It's located right here in Cheatham County, in a quiet field near the Harpeth River where Montgomery Bell made his home, and part of his considerable fortune for a time. I had no idea when I wrote that first installment where it would lead, but anyone who loves this area, and understands the importance of preserving history would be led as I have been to learn more about the man, his times, and the slaves who spent much if not all of their lives working for him.
There are still members of his family here, as well as descendants of the slaves who lived there. Some of them want the story told, as long as it's the truth, and that is exactly what I hope to tell. Of course there are stories that have been shared, and some of them may be a little more colorful than they were originally, but they still bare telling.
The cemetery today, thanks to the scouts and others who have worked so diligently recently, is a beautiful and quiet place where you can feel the history. The field surrounding it is still a field, the Harpeth River still runs right by it, and the walls and markers have been uncovered and replaced. Atop Montgomery Bell's massive marble marker there is something missing. It is a large heavy ball, that will hopefully soon be replaced. For now it's being cared for by a neighbor, who reclaimed it from two young men who were attempting to cart it off several years ago.
Jerry Street, who has lived near the property for many years now tells the story. Street was on crutches after back surgery in 1979. He watched the two boys from his house, one would carry it and then the other. "It's heavy," he said. He got to the boys and asked what they were doing. "Ah nothing" was the reply, twice. "Yeah, you just bring it on up to the house," he told them. "They carried it from here to my house," that day, and he's been caring for the ball ever since. That was in 1979. There is a long brass connector inside the monument where the ball was once attached. It is being readied to hold the ball once again.
Pieces of the monument aren't the only things that people have tried to cart off the property over the years. There are some extremely large holes within the boundaries, dug by treasure hunters. Rumor has it that Bell had gold buried on the land, and apparently several people have come out looking for it. As far as we know, no one has found it.
Montgomery Bell wasn't the first person to see the beauty and abundance of the area as a place to call home. His home site is only a short distance from Mound Bottom, site of Indian remains as well as the large mound of the earlier settlers, the Native American Indians who lived and worked the land.
He bought the property in 1818. But Bell had visions of harnessing the river, which he did. From Buddy Brehm's Along The Harpeth: "He could see more in the Narrows Bluff than a field to raise corn. Bell could see power - power to operate a furnace, forge, grist mill, saw mill, or any number of water-powered enterprises. So the Narrows of the Harpeth changed ownership, and not long after the change, a portion of the waters of the Harpeth River rushed through a tunnel, cut through the bluff, with adequate force to operate furnaces and forges, and to process the metal from Bell's Smelting Furnaces scattered about Middle Tennessee."
Although it was Bell's vision to build the tunnel, it was Samuel W. Adkisson, and an untold number of slaves who made it a reality. Adkisson was a mechanic and a turnpike builder, farmer and stonecutter. His family lived in the Shacklett area of what was then Davidson County, now Cheatham. He was born in 1801 and died in 1875 and was buried in the Dog Creek Cemetery on Dog Creek Rd. According to Brehm, Adkisson was a "man who knew and loved mathematics" and it was probably this knowledge that helped him successfully engineer the "the construction of Newsom's Dam, mill and stone house," as well as the Narrows tunnel.
Montgomery Bell, through his own wits and the labor of his numerous slaves, left his considerable mark on Tennessee, and in the next few weeks we hope to uncover some of those marks.
