BYRON AMOS BELL

Sacramento County

Biographies

BYRON AMOS BELL

BYRON AMOS BELL. The history of the Bell family dates back to the Revolutionary war, during which struggle Amos Bell was born in the state of Massachusetts. In later life he removed to Weybridge, Vt., where his son, Amos, Jr., was born. The son remained on the old homestead engaged in farming and sheep raising for some years, then removed to Middlebury, Vt., where he died, leaving four children, the eldest of whom, Byron Amos Bell, was born February 21, 1854, in Addison county. He was educated in the common schools of his native state, and remained there until 1873. During that year the firm of Hammond & Severance shipped many car loads of sheep west, and Mr. Bell was put in charge of the first consignment, consisting of six car loads, with which he reached Sacramento May 3, 1873. Here the sheep were sold and sent to many different parts of the state.

Mr. Bell remained in Sacramento about a year, then went to Bakersfield, where he was placed in charge of the sheep ranch of Jewett Brothers, but his health becoming impaired he returned to Sacramento, entering the employ of Albert Gallatin, and later was placed in charge of the Gallatin ranch, which consists of thirty thousand acres, ten thousand acres being good agricultural land, while twenty thousand acres are devoted to sheep raising. Mr. Bell has had this land rented for ten years, and he and his partner, Thomas Gilliam, handle on an average fifteen thousand sheep, which have a large range around Eagle and Horse lakes. Mr. Bell also has fifteen hundred and forty acres of land on Red Bank creek, half a mild west of the Gallatin ranch, and there he is building an elegant home, good buildings and fences. That place he intends to devote to the raising of thoroughbred Spanish Merino sheep for breeding purposes.

Mr. Bell married Kitty Doyle, who was a native daughter, having been born in San Francisco, and two children were born of this union. Eva and Albert, both of whom are at home. After the death of his first wife Mr. Bell was married to Louise Walters in Tehama county, and three children were born to them, as follows: Ada, Kitty and Walter, Jr.

In politics Mr. Bell is a Republican, on the ticket of which party he was elected to his present office of county commissioner, and he also has been delegate to the county conventions. He belongs to the Presbyterian Church, of which he is trustee and elder, and is a very active worker in church interests, especially so in the Sunday school work, and has been Sunday school superintendent for three years. He is a very prominent man in his county, and shows great ability in handling large tracts of land like the Gallatin ranch, which he has managed for twenty-two years most successfully and profitably, and in raising sheep, a business he has followed the greater portion of his life.

Transcribed 11-7-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: “History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California” by J. M. Guinn. Pages 1650-1651. Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1906.