Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEOKGIA AND GEORGIANS 3131he now stands among the first. There is probably no single mercantile establishment at Brunswick which has had a more rapid and substantial growth.In the meantime he has extended his interests to other enterprises, and isone of the large stockholders in the James D. Wright Insurance Company, inthe Brunswick Creosote plant. He is a Mason and Mystic Shriner and alsoaffiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.On -September 15, 1903, at Brunswick he married Miss Sadie Lavina,daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Lavina. They have two children: David Gordon,born at Brunswick in 1904 and attending school; and Miss Lillian, born in1907 and also in school.MAJ. MADISON BELL was one of the eminent Georgians during the middleof the last century. It is therefore only appropriate that some mention ofhis career should be included in this history of Georgia. His biographer Dr.V. D. Lockhart published about thirty years ago,*when Major Bell was stillalive, a booklet of about sixty pages on his career, and it is from that sketchthat the main facts in the following paragraphs are obtained.Madison Bell was born June 25, 1836, and died in Atlanta in August,1896. His birth occurred on Grove River in what was then Hall and afterwards Banks County, Georgia. His father was Maj. John Bell, his grandfather James Bell, and his great-grandfather Thomas Bell. James Bellwas a native of Pennsylvania and moved from that state to Virginia, whereMaj. John Bell was born. Maj. John Bell engaged in business in South Carolina when a young man, and there married Miss Narcissa Lockard. Afterthe birth of five children in South Carolina the family moved to Georgia,where five other children were born. The late Major Bell was the seventhsonȦVhen the latter was still a small boy his parents moved to the lands whichhis father had bought on the west side of the Chattahooche River. Thislocality was known as the Glade Gold Mine and was situated in Hall County.Maj. John Bell was for many years actively identified with gold mining,farming and other affairs in that section of the state. Politically he was anold line whig. Maj. John Bell was born December 1, 1792, and died March2, 1850. His wife, who died May 4, 1861, was of Scottish and Welsh descentand a woman of very strong character and lovable disposition.After the death of his father Madison Bell remained on the farm, plowing and hoeing and performing other ordinary labors with the other fieldhands and occasionally attending such schools as were taught in the immediate neighborhood. These schools were typical of the educational facilitiessupplied the youth of Georgia fifty years ago. The teachers were men ofvery limited education and governed their charges entirely by the rigiddiscipline of force. In such a school Madison Bell acquired a limited knowledge of spelling, reading and writing. He often studied hard at night tosatisfy his ambition for better things. At the age of eighteen he began working in a general merchandise store at Gainesville at wages of $7 a month.His ability brought him promotion, responsibility and wages, but after ayear he gave up the work to enter the law .offices of Gray & Banks at Gainesville, where he took up the earnest study of law. A little later the law department was added to the University at Athens. The professors of the law department were Joseph H. Lumpkin, chief justice of the Supreme Court;Thomas R. R. Cobb and William Hope Hull, learned and distinguished lawyers of the day. Major Bell was graduated from the- law school on February1, 1861, and his diploma was signed by the law professors above named. Hethen practiced for a short time at Homer, the county seat of the newly organized Banks County. Homer was a very new town, and the nearest railroadpoint was Athens. It was a growing comnranity, however, and Mr. Bell onthe recommendation of Judge Lumpkin had chosen it for his place of prac-