Person:Robert Bell (3)

Robert Smith Bell was born on October 22, 1810 in Belmont County, Ohio, the oldest son of Rev. Zephaniah Bell and Margaret Smith. He went with his parents to Richland County, Ohio where he married Chloe Hadley on April 12, 1832. She was born on June 21, 1809 in New York. On October 3, 1843, Robert and his family in the company of other pioneers left Richland County by ox drawn wagons with the intention of making homes in the western wilderness. After a seventeen day journey, their first stopping place in Indiana was at Anderson in Madison County, where a part of the company would spent the winter. Robert and his brother-in-law Leonard Maring, and Calvin Maring and Ira Jackson pushed northward to Huntington. While in Huntington, they were induced by Charles Lewis to visit some land that he had for sale in the southern part of Whitley County. After a prospecting tour in which they looked at several tracts of land, they returned to Huntington, not very well pleased with the looks of Whitley County. After some further prospecting, they returned to Whitley County where each purchased land in what is now Washington and Jefferson Townships. Robert's land was the southwest quarter of section 30, which became part of Jefferson Township in 1845. Robert was an accomplished hunter and during the early years of the settlement, was a principle provider of meat for the community. By his own account, he killed four hundred and eighty four deer in his lifetime, some of which were killed in Ohio before coming to Indiana. On one of his hunting trips, he came upon a hollow log containing some wolf pups. With the certain knowledge that the adults were probably Close by, he hurriedly crawled in and got the pups. He took the pups to the agency to claim his bounty, but was informed they only paid bounties for dead wolves. Robert later remarked that killing those pups was the hardest work he had ever done. Robert died on January 17, 1878 and Chloe died on July 21, 1890. Both are buried in Bethel Evergreen Cemetery in Laud, Whitley County,Indiana.