The Bell Witch: The Full Account Read Online Free PDF Page B

Royal as a trade center
    diminished after the Edgefield and Kentucky
    Railroad, which later became the Louisville and
    Nashville Railroad, was built in 1859 to serve nearby
    Adams Station and Springfield. By 1879,
    steamboats had stopped calling on Port Royal and
    the once-thriving trade center became a “ghost
    town.” Port Royal is now a state park in Montgomery
    County, Tennessee near Clarksville.
    Religion
    John Bell was accepted into Red River Baptist
    Church in 1805 by a letter of dismission issued from
    his former church in North Carolina. 12
    Ministers John Taylor and Ambrose Dudley of

    11 Albert Virgil Goodpasture, Goodspeed History of Tennessee – Robertson County , 1886, p. 860.
    12 Red River Baptist Church Minutes (1791-1826) , P. 161.

    32 P A T
    F I T Z H U G H
    Kentucky, along with Elias Fort and William Prince,
    established the Red River Baptist Church in 1791
    near the confluence of the Red River and Sulphur
    Fork Creek in Port Royal. The church has changed
    its location five times since its inception, and is
    currently located in Adams, Tennessee.

    Red River Baptist Church in Adams, Tennessee
    as it appears today.
    The first leaders of Red River Baptist Church were
    the Forts, who emigrated to middle Tennessee from
    North Carolina in 1788 and settled between the Red
    River and Elk Fork Creek. Elias Fort had been
    actively involved with the Tar River Association in
    North Carolina before moving to Tennessee, and was
    one of many friends who wrote letters to the Bells
    telling them about the beauty and fertility of the Red
    River bottomland.
    Two of Fort’s sons, Josiah and Sugg, served as
    clerk of Red River Baptist Church at different times
    during the church’s early years. c Sugg Fort
    eventually became the church’s pastor. As families
    continued to migrate to the area, more churches

    THE BELL WITCH: THE FULL ACCOUNT
    33
    sprang into existence; and the area became evenly
    split between the Baptist and Methodist faiths.
    Most families who professed the Methodist faith
    worshiped at nearby Bethel Methodist Church with
    Reverend James Gunn. Reverend James and
    Reverend Thomas Gunn were the pioneers of
    Methodism in the area. The Gunns preached to
    various congregations that comprised “circuits,”
    some of which still exist today.
    The fact that the Bell family was of a different
    religious faith than the Gunns did not preclude a
    lifelong friendship between the two families.

    Reverend Thomas Gunn officiated at several of the
    Bell children’s weddings, and his daughters, Martha
    and Elizabeth, married sons of John Bell.
    Both the Red River Baptist Church and Bethel
    Methodist Churches continued to grow, with families
    from all over Robertson and Montgomery Counties
    increasing their participation in worship services and
    invigorating revivals. Sugg Fort’s ministerial duties
    now encompassed both Red River Baptist Church
    and newly formed Drake’s Pond Baptist Church near
    the present town of Guthrie, Kentucky. d
    In addition to traditional worship services, church
    members often congregated in homes throughout the
    community to read scripture, sing hymns, and pray
    to the Almighty.
    The Bells Prosper
    John and Lucy Bell had three more children —
    Elizabeth, Richard Williams, and Joel Egbert Bell, in
    the years following their emigration to Tennessee.
    Around 1814, the Bells’ two oldest sons, Jesse and
    John Jr., joined the 2nd Tennessee Regiment and
    fought under then Major General Andrew Jackson, at
    Horseshoe Bend in 1814 and New Orleans in 1815.

    34 P A T
    F I T Z H U G H
    During this time, the Bells also patented an
    additional 100-acre tract of land, which increased
    the size of their farm to 320 acres. 13 Along with
    Dean and the other slaves, Bell and his sons cleared
    new fields and planted orchards that still exist today.
    John Jr. and Drewry Bell, along with neighbor Alex
    Gunn, engaged in flatboating between Port Royal and
    New Orleans. During the summer, they built
    flatboats