Thomas James Bell                   

Thomas James Bell, better known as T. J. Bell, his wife Hulda Hampton Bell  and six children  moved into the Fairbanks area of Owen County in 1856 or 1857 from Harrison County.  They purchased a farm near Fairbanks on what was known as "the old dirt road to Caney Creek", and built the family home.  The old house stood until destroyed by a tornado in 1973.

  The Children born in Harrison County were:

 Lucetta  b 1/24/1844   d 2/25/1869  Married 2/25/1865 to Jehu Dempsey
 Mary Jane b 4/16/1845   d 2/3/1868    Married 12/22/1864 to Dowen Smith
 William Thomas II  b 3/30/1847  d 3/2/1919  Married 7/12/1868 to Louisa F. Fightmaster
 Jeptha Bell  b 9/2/1849  d 6/27/1931    Married 12/18/1871 to Emily Munson
 Andrew Hampton  b 1/6/1853  d 3/10/1937  Married 11/21/1875 Lucretia Curtis
 Richard Allen b 1/7/1855   d 4/4/1923  Married (1)Sarah Ann-(2) 1/1881 Ida Kenney

   The Children born in Owen County were:

  George Washington  b 9/5/1858  d 4/8/1941 Married (1)Lina Mulberry (2) Mrs Willie Jane Martin
 Lucy Ann  b 1/18/1861  d 6/6/1932  Married 7/1881 to Harrison Smith
 Noah Hayden b 12/30/1862  d2/21/1911  Married (1) Ann Watson (2) Laura Towles
 Martha Ann  b 7/16/1866  d 2/2/1885   Never Married

  T. J., Hulda and several of their children and grandchildren are buried in the T. J. Bell Cemetery which is located approximately 600 feet from the old home-site.

• Notes of Author:

T. J. Bell was the son of William Thomas (born in Scotland) and Martha Bell of Stafford, Virginia.  T. J. had an older sister named Catha E. who moved to Harrison County, Kentucky before he did.  She lived with some of her mother's family named Thompson.  She married Benjamin Robinson on 2/16/1833.

  William Thomas Bell was killed in a milling accident in 1830.
  In 1832, T. J.'s mother (Martha), T. J., and younger sister Martha left Virginia to move to Harrison County (Rutland Precinct), KY. 
  T. J. told of being on the trail on his eleventh birthday.  When they got to the Ohio River, it was frozen.  Martha decided to continue on to KY by horseback rather than stay over the Winter in a rough river town.  They had two horses which Mother and daughter rode, T. J. walked the whole way of some 600 miles. Their household goods were shipped after the Spring thaw.
  It is believed that they moved in with Martha's brother, Wm. B. Thompson (School Teacher in the Rutland Precinct).
  T. J's younger sister, Martha, married in 1848 to William Dunn.  He was supposedly killed by confederate sympathizers in 1865 in Williamstown, KY.
  T. J. passed on the story of how his mother remembered the night that the British burned Washington.  Though they lived about 50 miles away, she said that the sky was so bright that she could see a pin in the backyard.