Josiah H. Bell

Bell's colony role was larger than his own farm. He came to Texas with Austin in 1821 and brought a family of enslaved people, serving as síndico procurador that year and alcalde in 1822. From 1822 until August 1823 he ran Austin's colony while Austin was in Mexico. In 1834 he called a meeting of colonists to draft petitions seeking Austin's release from prison. He sold the tract that held Marion and East Columbia to Walter C. White and James Knight in October 1837, moved to West Columbia, and died the next May with an estate estimated at $140,000.

What the plaque says

Josiah H. Bell A member of Stephen F. Austins original 300 colonists, Josiah Hughes Bell was born August 22m 1791, in Chester District, South Carolina. Josiah Bells father died when he was five years old, so he went to live in Tennessee with family to learn the trade of hatter. While living in the Missouri District, Bell became friends with Moses Austin and his son, Stephen F. Austin. Josiah Bell joined the Missouri Mounted Militia as a second lieutenant during the War of 1812. Following the war, he traveled to Tennessee to visit his mother and met his future wife, Mary Eveline McKenzie (1799-1856). She and Bell married in 1818 in Kentucky. The couple operated a mercantile business in Natchitoches, Louisiana, for two years before moving to Hemphill, Texas. PARAGRAPH BREAK In 1821, Austin wrote bell granting him permission to settle in the new colony near New Washington. Bell served as Alcalde, constable, and judge in the new colony, even taking over Austins duties while he was traveling in Mexico. Bell and his family moved several times along the Brazos River and eventually settled in the town of Columbia near the present-day cemetery. Bell laid out two towns, developed a sugar plantation and built the first hotel in the area. During this time he began work on the Bell family home, completed in 1827. The home was often used as an office for Stephen F. Austin when he was in town. Bell and Austin continued their friendship through correspondence, including letters regarding tax laws, regulations of the Mexican government and education in the colony. Bell died on May 17, 1838, and was buried in the cemetery that his wife later gave to the citizens of West Columbia. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 1.7 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 9.8 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 21 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• Ammon Underwood — steps away
• George Rounds — steps away
• Byrd Lockhart — steps away
• Samuel Tubbs Angier, M.D. — steps away