Bell, William (4)

Bell, William (4), a Universalist minister, was born at Windsor, Vt., June 16, 1791. He was strictly trained in Calvinism; removed to South Hampton. N. H., in 1797; attended school at East Kingston and Concord, N. H., and at Newburyport, Mass.; learned the printing and silver-plating business; and in 1818 removed to Charlestown, Mass., and embraced Universalism. He received a private theological training under the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and began to preach in 1824 at Haverhill, Mass. He spent the first ten years of his ministry in Salem and Washington, N. H., and Springfield and Woodstock, Vt., during which period he edited and published five volumes of The Watchman and Christian Repository. Thence he removed to Lansingburg, N. Y.; thence to Bennington, Vt.; thence to Milford, Mass.;

thence to Lowell, where for a time he assumed the editorial labors of the Star of Bethlehem; and in 1849 to Boston, where, with the exception of three years spent in Charlestown, he remained until his death, April 30, 1871. Mr. Bell was not great in either natural endowments or acquirements, but a man of sound mind, amiable disposition, strong faith, and decided religious feeling. See Universalist Register, 1872, p. 130.