Josiah Hughes Bell 1791-1838

Josiah Hughes Bell 1791-1838. . , Josiah Bell, a personal friend of Stephen F. Austin and member of The Old Three Hundred, managed Austin's colony for seventeen months while Austin traveled to Mexico to negotiate with the newly independent Mexican government to continue his colonization efforts. In January of 1824, Bell made a camp on Bell's Creek. Making a "landing” on the Brazos just below Varner Creek, Bell built docks and sheds to store freight. Despite Bell's efforts to name this "landing” Marion, local residents dubbed it "Bell's Landing.” By Christmas of 1824, Bell and his family moved into a "good dwelling house” on the banks of the Brazos. In 1826, Bell laid out the town of Columbia and built a new family home. An early teacher described the Bell's large, six room log home as "a welcome home to every stranger, where the hungry are fed, the naked clad, the sick nursed.” During his days in Columbia, Sam Houston maintained an office on the grounds of the Bell home in which Josiah Bell lived until his death in 1838.