THEODORE BELL
                                                                             Home



History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois, 1879, by Miller & Ruggles
Quiver Township
Page 820

THEODORE BELL, druggist aud hardware, Topeka; son of William Bell, who was born in Pennsylvania; was a stone mason, and died in August, 1861; his wife's maiden name was Hennigh, daughter of Daniel Hennigh, a noted farmer; she survived her husband and, two years after his death, came to Illinois, and is now making her home in Kansas, with her son Daniel. The subject of this sketch was born May IS, 1846, on a farm in Pennsylvania, and remained there engaged in going to school most of the time until 15 years old, when he left the scenes of his childhood soon after his last farewell to his father, and came, with his two sisters and one brother, to Mason Co. Two years afterward, his mother came. Mr. Bell engaged, at his settlement, in farming for his older brother, Mr. Daniel Bell, with whom his mother makes her home in Kansas, and worked for him one season; when nearly 18, he enlisted in Co. L, llth I. V. C., and served eighteen months; returning from war, he began working for his brother, on a farm, for one summer, and then engaged in clerking in a drug store for Harper & Robinson, of Havana, for six months; he then taught school for some time in Sherman Township, Mason Co., and afterward attended school at the Northwestern University at Plainfield, Ill., for two terms; from there he went to Pennsylvania and engaged in reading law for a year with the firm of Longworth & Jenks; afterward, he made a visit to Kansas and soon engaged in teaching school for three years, and, in 1875, he, like others who have left the beautiful plains of Mason Co., returned and engaged in teaching school for three years; he then bought the drug store at Topeka, owned by C. H. Martz, to which he has added a hardware department, and in which business he still continues; he has held the office of Town Clerk.



Maintained by Mason County Coordinator Donna Mayer