George Cyrus Bell (1825 - 1893)

Born 30 May 1825 in Morgan, Ohio, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 7 Aug 1893 at age 68 in Polk, Oregon, United States

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Biography

"George Cyrus and Mary Ann DeLong Bell pioneered in Oregon. They crossed the plains in 1851, the year they were married. I am writing this account during Oregon's Centennial year, one hundred and eight years after they left Ohio. The genealogy of George C. is recorded in some detail in the big Bible which Joe DuBois, mother's first cousin, gave to me." . . .

"Mary Ann DeLong and George Cyrus Bell (1825-1893) were married March 30, 1851. Their children were: Julia, born Feb. 3, 1854, died July 7, 1911. Agnes DeLong, born Oct. 27, 1855, died Aug. 28, 1925. Calista Vinton, born April 6, 1858, died Sept. 10, 1874. Edward, born Jan. 4, 1860, died Dec. 7, 1907, Unmarried. Olive May, born Nov. 15, 1864, died Mar. 13, 1958. She married Fred P. Reddaway in 1903. No children." . . .

"The "Western Fever" was raging in the eastern states "in the days of old, the days of gold, the days of '49", and Ohio, scarcely out of its own pioneering days, was no exception. When it struck the neighborhood of the Bells and DeLongs in what was then Morgan County, it aroused the same craving for adventure and land of their own in the younger generation, that induced their forbears to cross an ocean instead of a continent.

On a Sunday late in March 1851. relatives, friends and neighbors from miles around forgathered at the Joseph Bell home to say God-be-with-you to a party about to leave for Oregon. George Cyrus Bell and Mary Ann DeLong were "keeping company" and, of course, Mary Ann was there. By this time everyone -- there were exceptions -- was coming down with the "Oregon fever" and at the last moment George Cyrus decided to join the party; that is, if Mary Ann would go with him. They strolled away from the crowd to talk it over, and Mary Ann did not fail him; then or ever. They talked of the fertile country and mild climate, but could they leave home so far behind? There was little or no time to consider or to prepare for such a journey. Notwithstanding these and many other objections, they decided to be married at once and in two days leave with brother John's party for the vast faraway unknown that was called The West. With hopes so high how could they doubt that someday they would return to home, friends, and their dear Brookfield?"

"In 1934 Mrs. Angie Thrap Nosset of Cumberland, Ohio gave me the names of eleven members of the party. She was ninety-one years old, and still remembered when she went to school for one day to Mary Ann DeLong. She was only eight years old when the party left for Oregon, but she named the following members. There may have been others: John W. Bell, his wife Lorena Nickerson Bell, and their small daughters, Rebecca and Caroline. George Cyrus Bell and wife Mary Ann De Long Bell. Clarissa Bell, their sister, who in 1856 married Nathaniel DuBois. John Lambert and wife. David Lambert. George Lambert. Partings are strewn all along life's journey. They were leaving home, parents, numerous relatives and the young friends with whom they had grown to maturity. Some hundred years later we found among Mary Ann's things a beautiful shell case that contains a leather-bound autograph album dated 1850. Besides the usual verses from the signers, a lock of his or her hair, braided and artistically arranged, is fastened to the page. A relic of her youth which she could not leave behind, and over which she must have wept when overwhelmed with longing for home and loved ones."

"Grandfather George Cyrus Bell was educated at Granville College, Ohio. As they plodded along faint trails or wagon tracks over the primitive plains and rugged mountains that lay between Ohio and the promised land, he kept his diary -- kept it as long as he lived. After his death in 1893 and Grandmother's in 1902, the new house he built shortly before I was born was burned and the priceless record with it. In the Fall of 1851 they reached Portland, Oregon."

"Portland was little more than a shanty town but they found work in a boarding-house for the winter, which was a mild but very wet one In the Spring of 1852 they gathered together the few things they possessed (I have one of their dining chairs) and took a Willamette River boat up to Lincoln, Polk County. From there they walked past Zena over the hills to a "squatter's" claim of which they had been told. It was their dream come true, so they bought his rights from the squatter and lived there for the rest of their lives."

"On October 1, 1958 the farm, which was owned by the family for one hundred and six years, was sold but not until the Oregon Historical Society enrolled George Cyrus Bell as the founder of a Century Farm."

"Julia, their first child, was born in 1854. All six of the children were born in the log-cabin that was on the place when they bought it. Agnes and Callista had arrived before the September Sunday in 1858 when the Amity Baptist Church was organized by Elder George C. Chandler. They arose earlier that usual that morning to do the milking, feed the horse, cows, chickens, pigs, and last but not least, themselves, before they dressed four-year-old Julia, little Agnes and baby Calista for church and the ten mile drive over what we would think were impossible roads -- deep in dust, full of "thank-you- mams', with the patient farm horses plodding along in spite of losing their day off -- to the home of John Van Buskirk, four miles northwest of Amity, where the sponsors of the church met. Organized just before the Civil War, the church staunchly opposed slavery."

The above was taken from a paper written by my grandmother's sister, Grace Bell Jones Austin (1873-1965). I was born in 1930 so I knew Aunt Grace well. She left us so many treasures

Family links: Spouse: Mary A Delong Bell (1828 - 1902)

Children: Julia Bell Jones (1854 - 1911)* Calista Vinton Bell (1858 - 1874)* Edward Bell (1860 - 1907)* Lucy Bell (1862 - 1885)* Olive M. Bell Reddaway (1864 - 1958)*

• Calculated relationship

Burial: Bethel Cemetery Bethel Polk County Oregon, USA

Sources

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9793457