Rev. Wm. M. Bell. The Rev. Wm. M. Bell was born in Richmond County, Virginia, July 23, 1823, and is a son of Thomas V. and Elizabeth Bell. His parents died when he was but two years old, leaving him to the care of friends, who reared him in the country until 1837, when, at the age of fourteen, he came to Missouri. In 1838 he entered one of the schools at Booneville, Missouri. In 1839 he was clerk in a dry goods store in Clinton, Missouri, and worked for several firms in this capacity. In the year 1844 he was married to Mary N., daughter of Judge R. E. McDaniel, of Saline county, Missouri, and settled five miles east of Miami, on a farm; and in the autumn of 1846, he united with the Baptist Church, at Bethel, in Saline county. He soon began to speak in public after entering the church, and in 1848 was licensed by the Bethel Church to preach, and in 1850 he was ordained. Very soon after his ordination he was called to the pastoral charge of the First Baptist Church in Miami, and in a short time, also to the pastoral charge of the Bethel Church, remaining pastor of these two churches until 1858. In 1858 he resigned his pastoral care, and became agent for the board of ministerial education of the William Jewel College, and in five month raised $10,000 in cash and bonds. Constituted a church in Arrow Rock, in 1851. Was for some years pastor of Good Hope Church. In 1860, assisted by A. P. Williams, he constituted the Union Church, and became its pastor, and, with brief intervals, has continued its pastor to the present day. Was three years pastor of the church in Marshall, and for a short period pastor of the Fish Creek Church.
