Thomas Bell: Pioneer, Soldier, and Settler in Texas History (ca. 1802–1858)

Thomas Bell, stockman, farmer, soldier, and early settler, was born about 1802 probably in North Carolina, according to census information. He arrived in Texas sometime before 1822 at about age twenty, though his listing in Stephen F. Austin’s Register of Families noted that he arrived in 1824 and gave Georgia as his place of origin. He settled, without color of title, on land that later became William Scott’s two leagues and a labor, situated on the east side of the San Jacinto River just above the mouth of Cedar Bayou (or Creek) in present-day Harris County. Scott acquired title to the property in 1824 when titles were first being issued; he and his family were in possession in 1826 according to the census taken that year of the Atascosita District. Scott purchased from Bell the improvements he had made on the property while in temporary possession.

In 1822 Bell and his brother James moved west across the Brazos River to settle anew where the small community of Cochran grew up, about one mile west of the river, in the northeastern part of modern-day Austin County. On November 13, 1828, Thomas Bell married a neighbor’s daughter, Abigail Grimes from Tennessee. On March 22, 1831, he obtained title to a league of land on the west bank of the Brazos River in the future Austin County.

When the Texas Revolution began Bell enlisted on September 28, 1835, in Capt. William Scott’s Lynchburg Volunteers, a light infantry company equipped by Scott after its organization at his home, Point Pleasant, situated on the east bank of the San Jacinto River, a location now within the limits of Baytown. Under a blue silk flag bearing a single star and the inscription “Independence,” (see FLAGS OF THE TEXAS REVOLUTION) the company took the road from Lynchburg, through San Felipe, to Gonzales where volunteers from other settlements and farms were assembling for a march on San Antonio, then held by a Mexican force commanded by Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos.

Bell and Second Lt. James S. McGahey left the Lynchburg Volunteers sometime before the battle of Concepción. They fought in that engagement on October 28, 1835, as members of Capt. James W. Fannin’s Brazos Guards. By early December the Revolutionary Army, operating theretofore in two divisions, had reunited about a half-mile north of San Antonio with headquarters at an “Old Mill” on the west side of the San Antonio River. Bell left the Brazos Guards and was “placed” in the artillery company of Capt. Almeron Dickinson.

At 3:00 a.m. on December 5, 1835, Bell’s gun crew from Dickinson’s company, supported by Capt. John S. Roberts’s company of about nineteen mounted riflemen, crossed to the east side of the San Antonio River and emplaced an iron six-pounder smoothbore (probably the “Harrisburg Six”) within range of the Alamo compound garrisoned by a part of Cos’s command. Bell’s gun crew fired their first round at 5:00 a.m., a signal to the Texan assault columns waiting near the Old Mill to commence their attack on San Antonio. As intended, the first round initiated a lively exchange of fire between Dickinson’s gunners and the Alamo garrison, diverting the latter from the Texan infantry columns hastening through a cornfield toward the two heavily fortified town plazas. The artillery duel continued until well after sunrise. By 9:00 a.m. the men of Roberts’s and Dickinson’s commands were back at the Old Mill.

In the evening hours of December 5, Bell and other artillerymen were ordered into San Antonio, possibly to assist in remounting a twelve-pound gunade, commanded by Capt. Thomas J. Alsbury, that had been knocked from its carriage that afternoon by a Mexican cannon shot. After remounting, the piece was hauled during the night into the rear yard of the Veramendi house on Soledad Street where one of the Texan assault columns was sheltered. An embrasure for the gun was cut in a rock wall along one side of the yard. On the second day the two pieces of Texan artillery, the iron gunade and a long bronze six-pounder, opened a brisk fire on enemy positions in the town plazas. A round from Alsbury’s gunade, served by Bell’s crew, shattered part of the cupola atop San Fernando Church on the Main Plaza and temporarily drove from that commanding perch fifteen or twenty Mexican sharpshooters who had inflicted heavy losses on the Texans. After two more days of close combat the entire Mexican force surrendered on December 10. Bell received an honorable discharge on December 14.

Austin County was organized in 1837 with a county seat at San Felipe, only partially rebuilt after the revolution. By early 1848 a new county seat was officially established in the central part of the county at Bellville on 145.5 acres donated by Thomas (108 acres) and James (37.5 acres) Bell. When the United States census of 1850 was taken in the county, Thomas Bell was recorded as a farmer, born in North Carolina. His age was given as forty-eight, Abigail’s as forty. Her five-year-old niece, Jane Alford, lived with them on a stock farm yielding a modest amount of corn and oats. They had four slaves.

Thomas Bell on January 4, 1854, adopted thirty-three-year-old John Gideon Slade who had come to Texas from Florida. On December 5, 1855, the twentieth anniversary of the siege of Bexar, Bell petitioned the Texas legislature for donation and bounty land grants to which he was entitled for his participation in that engagement. Responding to Bell’s petition, the legislature on September 1, 1856, directed the commissioner of the General Land Office to issue certificates in Bell’s name for the requested grants. Thomas Bell died in Bellville on January 11, 1858, and was buried in the municipal cemetery.

Apparently John Gideon Bell or his assignees located 640 acres of donation land (partly in Austin County and partly in Harris County) and 320 acres of bounty land (186.5 acres in Austin County and 133.75 acres in Johnson County) and received patents in Bell’s name for the tracts in 1861, 1870, and 1872, respectively.

John Gideon Bell in April 1858 filed in Austin County probate court a petition alleging that Abigail Bell refused to give him Thomas Bell’s will designating him as executor. In response to a citation, she produced the will in open court. Filed for probate on May 31, 1858, and recorded on June 19, 1858, the will provided for distribution of the estate as follows.

Thomas Bell bequeathed to his wife Abigail a Black youth named Mat during Abigail’s life, after which Mat was given to Thomas L. Bell, son of John G. Bell. Thomas also bequeathed to Abigail a Black man named Henry for the duration of four months, after which he would belong to John G. Bell and his heirs with instructions that Henry be “well taken care of….” Finally Thomas bequeathed to Abigail a horse, a mule, and a stock of hogs. He devised to John G. Bell all “lands” and bequeathed to him all cattle except one large, red steer and fourteen mother cows, the excepted cattle perhaps being Abigail’s personal property.