Captain Frank M. Bell


From Fruit From a Family Tree by Michael Bell, copyright 1998

                        Shakespeare wrote that "in his time a man plays many parts".  This was certainly true of Frank Bell.
    He was a college-educated businessman, law enforcement officer and military veteran.  He had a strong, independent
    personality that made people take notice of him.
                        Frank Matthew Bell was born on July 6, 1859, in the little town of Springhills, Champaign County, Ohio.
    His father, William M. Bell, was a carpenter-turned-storeowner and the son of a Scotch-Irish immigrant.  His mother
    was Lucretia Elizabeth Cretcher, of Lewis County, Kentucky, by birth, when she married William Bell in the autumn
    of 1856.
                        They lived in a large, two-story frame house in Springhills, where William Bell had a store and was
    Postmaster for the town for a few years.  He was also elected mayor two years in a row in the mid-1860s.  Four
    children were born in Springhills.  The first, a boy named George after his Grandfather Bell, died when he was twelve
    years old.  The other children, in order of birth, were Frank, Harry, and Clara.  The Bell family moved to the growing
    town of Lima, Ohio, in 1864, possibly influenced by William Bell's brother-in-law, John Melhorn, who had been on the
    city council and was mayor of Lima from 1855 to 1857.  Three more children were born in Lima.  Lizzie died when she
    was sixteen months old.  William C. Bell, named after his father, died at the age of forty, having established himself as
    a partner in the firm of Mosier & Bell, running the Mosier Steam Laundry in Lima.  Kathyrn moved to Indianapolis after
    marriage and lived to be ninety-two years old.
                        Frank quit going to school in 1875, when he was around the age of sixteen.  He had felt that his teacher
    was not doing a good job; he left school a discouraged young man.  Within three years, however, Frank decided to continue
    his education.  On November 4, 1878, his father put him on the train to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.  He went
    to school there for four years, ending his studies in June, 1882.  Frank was a good student, earning high marks in algebra,
    French, surveying, elocution, and machine drawing in his senior years.  His final exam average was ninety-seven, and he
    was awarded First Honors, a gold medal indicating, among other things, a deportment without exception.  He received no
    degree, but almost all Notre Dame students in that era ended school without one.
                        Frank Bell returned to Lima with his newly earned education and entered the business of retail and wholesale
    merchandising.  He was twenty-three years old, almost six feet tall, with a fair complexion, brown hair and blue eyes.
    More than one person in town considered Frank Bell "the handsomest man in Lima".  Around 1885 he worked as a civil
    engineer with a local railroad company.  Later, he probably assisted his father in the management of the Bell Block.  This
    landmark Lima building was constructed around 1882.  It was three stories high, 200 feet deep, with a seventy-five foot
    front to North Main Street.  The Bell Block was considered one of the best business locations in the city.  On March 2,
    1889, Frank entered into a business partnership with his brother-in-law Frank E. Harman.  They operated a house furnishing
    business called Harman & Bell at 213 North Main Street, on the Bell Block, until 1894 when Frank sold out.  The business
    continued as the F.E. Harman Company.
                        Only two months before the start of Harman & Bell, Frank Bell married Lelia Kelly, a beautiful twenty-seven
    year-old woman with bachelor's and master's degrees from the College Wooster, who could rad Latin and Greek with ease.
    They would have three children:  a son who would die when he was two days old; a daughter, Eleanor; and another son,
    Harold.
                       In 1894, Frank Bell became interested in the growing field of oil production in the Lima area.  He was in that
    area of business for the next four years.  During that time, he also served two years as the Chief of Police in Lima.  In
    1898 war broke out with Spain.  Frank Bell's National Guard unit, the Melanchton Light Guards  (officially Company C, 2nd
    Ohio Volunteer Infantry), was called up for service.  He had been Captain of the company since December, 1884.  When
    Company C was mustered into regular army duty the mustering officer told Captain Bell that his company was the best one
    he had seen so far.  Company C was a well-trained military unit under the direction of the third-highest ranking captain in
    Ohio.  Captain Bell was a firm officer who expected much from his men but also looked out for their welfare.  This attitude
    would later cause him trouble with his superiors.
                        The Lima newspaper sent reporters to follow the progress of Company C as it headed, so everyone thought,
    for Cuba.  Soon after mustering in, Captain Bell spoke to his troops about what he expected from them.  The newspaper
    printed the speech in its entirety.  "If you make an ass of yourself," he told them, "you make asses of all of us".  He
    cautioned against smoking and drinking, warning the men that "the first man intoxicated goes back to Lima".  He also
    described his idea of punctuality, saying "when I say be here at 2 PM, it don't mean 2:10 PM".
                        Over the course of the next few months the company traveled by train south to Tennessee and later to the
    Chickamauga battlefield in Georgia.  The camps they lived in were horrid and filthy.  One officer even got in trouble for
    authorizing his men to leave camp to find a more sanitary place to sleep.  Disease spread rapidly, even making Captain Bell
    seriously ill in Chattanooga.  Besides disease, rumors were also spreading concerning where the troops would be sent
    next.  After it was clear that Cuba would not be their destination, talk spread that they would be sent to Puerto Rico.  The
    men were becoming agitated and restless.  Eventually a petition started its way around the 2nd Ohio's camp regarding
    the regiment's future.  Something in that petition struck a raw nerve in the men of Company C and some of them
    expressed their feelings in a brawl with men from the company that started the petition.
                        It was August 24, 1898 on the Chickamauga battlefield, and Captain Bell was regimental officer of the
    day.  Sensing that trouble was brewing, the colonel of the 2nd Ohio ordered Captain Bell to disperse his men before they
    did anything, but the captain did not do so.  He probably believed that the release of built-up tensions would do the men
    some good.  Captain Bell was brought to court-martial in September on charges of neglect of duty and disobedience of
    orders.  He was found guilty and sentenced to loss of his command for thirty days, giving up half of his pay for two
    months to the Federal government, and a reprimand in General Orders.
                        This was not the end of the story, however.  Privates in Company C informed the Lima newspaper that they
    believed the Captain Bell's court-martial was a "scheme" by his superior officers to kick him out of the army.  Support for
    Captain Bell was strong in his company and in his hometown, which even sent a committee to visit President McKinley
    protesting conditions in Company C's camp.  On September 29, while the regiment was moving its camp to Knoxville,
    Tennessee, the colonel allowed Captain Bell to ride on a wagon in the supply train instead of being in rear of his
    company as regulations dictated for an officer under arrest.  During the march, he left the wagon, making his way into
    the city of Knoxville to visit his family, who had traveled south to see him.  He made no effort to find his regiment.  Instead,
    he wandered the streets of the city until he found the Palace Hotel, where his wife and children were.
                        He rejoined the regiment the next morning.  Brought up on charges of leaving his quarters while under
    arrest, Captain Bell was found not guilty.  Legally, this verdict may have been determined by his testimony that he was
    not aware that he was obligated to stay on the wagon while under arrest.  More likely, the court probably decided not to
    make a bad situation worse by convicting him.  A few months afterward, moving farther north, the 2nd Ohio returned home,
    never having left the United States.  In writing up Captain Bell's efficiency report, the colonel of the regiment noted that he
    was always considered an insubordinate officer.  His descendants did not know all of these specifics concerning Captain
    Bell's military career until 100 years later.  However, it does fit the character of the person his grandchildren remember as
    Grandfather Bell.
                        On their return home to Lima, the men of Company C were treated like heroes even though they never were
    in battle, and Captain Bell had won the lasting respect of the men he served with during the war.  He was always "Captain
    Bell" whenever people addressed him; he was very proud of that title.  Once, in the 1930s, he even started driving down a
    blocked street.  A policeman stopped him, but he said in a forceful tone, "I'm Captain Bell!" and the officer snapped to attention
    and saluted as he drove on.
                        After the Spanish-American War, Frank Bell went into business again.  This time he operated the Bell Supply
    Company, which dealt in photographers', jewelers', and dental supplies.  He was very successful.  His "tarnished" service in
    1898 and 1899 did not prevent the military from calling him up for service again during the First World War.  During the war,
    Captain Bell helped provided border security in the Big Bend area of the Rio Grande River along the Texas-Mexico border.
                        When Captain Frank M. Bell died in 1939, the men with whom he served forty years earlier paid him a final
    honor:  veterans of Company C served as pallbearers at his funeral.