Montgomery Bell: Then And Now, A Man of Mystery
From The Advocate: 1/13/01
By DALE GRAHAM
The Advocate would like to sincerely thank the Tennessee State Library and Archives, and former Nashville Banner writer Ed Huddleston for his remarkable work in the 1955 series on Montgomery Bell. We especially thank Michael Holt, Nashville resident, genealogist and historian who has so willingly helped us find this information, as well as shared his own voluminous research.
As much as we have learned about Montgomery Bell, his life and his times in the past several weeks, there is still so much that is unknown. There are only bits and pieces, land deal documentation, advertisements in old newspapers for sales, rewards for runaway slaves. In the archives at the Tennessee State Library there are letters written by later historians, trying to gather information on the “Ironmaster”. They too were frustrated by the lack of information on the man, and the reluctance, or downright refusal of family members to communicate with them.
In fact, one of the oddest, and saddest of these non-existent records, is any mention of his daughter, Evaline. Two of her children are buried in the family plot, with a marble marker right next to Montgomery Bell himself. It takes a bit of research to even find out who the children are. In all the documents I have seen, and there are quite a few, she is never mentioned.
In Montgomery Bell’s will, Evaline’s husband, Thomas L. Bell, was given ½ of 1/8 of his estate. This by virtue of the fact that he was also Montgomery’s nephew. Montgomery Bell had 8 brothers and sisters, and Thomas had one sibling, therefore he received ½ of the 1/8 share his father received. Michael Holt says that Bell had already taken care of his daughter and nephew/son-in-law in a “conveyance” in 1851. He gave them about 500 acres near the Narrows, the operation known as Patterson Forge, and 72 slaves.
Apparently he did have at least one “friend”. This friend apparently felt close enough to Bell to tell him what others were thinking, that digging a tunnel through the Narrows was foolishness. From Livingston’s Portrait of American’s Now Living: “One of his most intimate friends, a lawyer of great eminence and reputed a man of great practical wisdom, exerted every influence to turn him from his purpose; assured him ‘he would waste all he had made, by his foolish endeavor to accomplish an impossibility; that he would never see daylight through that hill’”.
And what of the slaves that were sent to Liberia shortly before his death. Nannie (Mrs.Isaac S.) Boyd, of New York, was trying to gather information on Bell in the 1920’s-30’s. She also encountered the same problems researchers encounter today, rumors, gossip, half-truths and stone walls. In a letter she received from Andrew M. Sea Jr. of Louisville, KY written March 22, 1926: Montgomery Bell owned, as I have always understood, about 1500 negroes, and one of his big schemes was to colonize these Negroes in Africa. This was a wonderful conception and only in Bell’s death blocked it’s execution”.
1500 slaves! I doubt it.
As we stated in an earlier entry, The American Colonization Society (ACS), organized in 1817 to resettle African Americans to West Africa, was the vehicle for returning slaves to Liberia, on “Africa’s northwestern bulge”. The reasons owners had for sending slaves back could have included everything from pure humanitarianism, to fear that there were already too many slaves in the country. It wasn’t cheap to send slaves back this way. But thanks to the ACS and their records, we at least know a little more about some of Bell’s slaves, than we do about his own daughter. This from the Journal of the Executive Committee of the ACS in December of 1853, signed by W. McLain; “The most interesting and extraordinary part of this expedition was a family or thirty-eight, consisting of a man and his wife and their children and grandchildren, from near Nashville, Tenn., liberated by Col.
Montgomery Bell, a gentleman 85 years old. He gave them everything requisite as an outfit, and paid us $2,000 for their transportation and support six months in Liberia. He has a large number more, of whom he wants to send about eighty as soon as (we) will take them, and is willing to pay one half the expenses of transportation and support six months in Liberia, besides giving them a comfortable outfit, and paying their expenses to the port of embarkation. These people are the iron men of Tennessee, to whom we have heretofore made allusion. Mr. Bell has long been known as one of the largest manufacturers of iron and his slaves have been his only workmen. They thoroughly understand the business, and have among them miners, colliers, moulders, and are fully competent to build a furnace for making iron, and carrying it on themselves. They are men of high moral character, which would render them an acquisition to any country. Thomas Scott, the patriarch of the company who sailed in the General Pierce, helped to make the canon balls which were fired from behind the cotton bales at the battle of New Orleans, and he is yet a man of great activity and energy of character. He and his whole family entertain the very highest respect and veneration for their late master and their valued friend. His last words to me as they stood on the deck of the vessel, were “Do write a most loving letter to my old master, and tell him how much we love him, and will never stop thanking to Lord for his goodness to us”.
We will conclude this series next week. If you would like more information on Montgomery Bell, or his slaves, the Tennessee State Library and Archives is the place to visit. Also, Michael Holt is writing a book called “The Iron Men of Tennessee: The Slaves of Montgomery Bell” which he hopes to have ready for publication the middle of this year. We will keep you informed of publication.
