John Bell and Bell Mines

Who was John Bell creator of our Bell Mines and Community

 

In 1836 John Bell, a politician from Nashville, Tennessee, came to Crittenden County in hopes of establishing a new coal mining industry. He purchased thirty-one acres of land from John Lamb and John Rourk. The land being located in northern Crittenden County, next to the Tradewater River. This was the beginning of the coal mining town that would be named Bells Mines, after the man that started the mines.

 

John Bell was rarely present at his Kentucky mine projects, he relied on paid managers. After five or six years of work on the Kentucky mine project, John Bell left and returned to national political arena and the U. S. Senate as a Senator from the state of Tennessee. In 1847, Bell put his coal holdings in trust and his agents continued to run the Bell mines. 

 

 W. C. Carvell, who had as interest in the mines and who was manager for Bell while he was away, eventually purchased Bell's interest in the mines.

 Although John Bell died in 1867 in Tennessee, Carvell kept the mine going for several years, but John Bell's legacy of the beginning of Bells Mines continued to be carried on today.

 

Bell, John Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Bell entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1827 and served there as a Democrat until 1841. He broke with Pres. Andrew Jackson in 1834 and supported Hugh Lawson White for president in 1836.

 

After White’s defeat Bell became a Whig and, in March 1841, as a reward for party services, was made secretary of war in Pres. William Henry Harrison’s Cabinet. A few months later, after the death of President Harrison, he resigned in opposition to Pres. John Tyler’s break with the Whigs.

 

After six years’ retirement from political life, Bell was elected as a U.S. senator for Tennessee in 1847, serving in the Senate until 1859. Although a large slaveholder, Bell opposed efforts to expand slavery to the U.S. territories. He vigorously opposed Pres. James Knox Polk’s Mexican War policy and voted against the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas–Nebraska bill (1854), and the attempt to admit Kansas as a slave state. 

 

Bell’s temperate support of slavery combined with his vigorous defense of the Union brought him the presidential nomination on the Constitutional Union ticket in 1860, but he carried only Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. He initially opposed secession; however, following Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops, he openly advocated resistance and henceforth classed himself a rebel. Bell spent the war years in retirement in Georgia and Alabama returning to Tennessee in 1865. 

 

 This marker is located in Sturgis, KY, Union County, close to the town's 4-way stop.  I always wondered why it was placed here instead of at the Bells Mines Road on SR 365.  Perhaps it is safer located there.

Firing of the Last Shot in WWI (Part II)

 

On May 19, 2020 I did a post on Herbert F. Phillips and his part in the "Firing of the Last Shot in WWI."  Since that post I have acquired some more interesting information on this story about a Crittenden County boy.

Although Herbert F. Phillips moved away from Crittenden County, he is still considered a Crittenden Countian as he was born and lived his early days here.

This is from the  Journal and Courier of Lafayette, Indiana, May 30, 1960.

Last Shot Fired After War Ended

Officially, World War I ended with an armistice at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, but the last artillery round of that war - fired by a West Lafayette man who died last week - reportedly was fired five minutes later.

Herbert F. Phillips, an Army veteran of 34 years and two World Wars, was buried with military honors last Wednesday in Tippecanoe Memory Gardens.  

From personal correspondence of Phillips, most of it in the early 1930's when an effort was made to locate the gun and display it at West Point, along with the one which had fired the first charge of World War I, the following story of the events of that historic hour developed:

Phillips, then a first lieutenant, was executive officer of Battery E of the 11th Field artillery.  His battery was in position on a small ridge, near Evansville, France, and had been firing steady all day the armistice was signed.  The battery's target was a German "77" battery.

When orders came to cease fire at 11 a.m., Lt. Phillips planned to fire at 10:59 a.m. one last round at the enemy battery which had "given us quite a bit of trouble all morning."  according to Phillips' papers.

As it turned out, the last round actually went off at 11:05 a.m.,"either by accident or by design," according to a letter by Phillips to Maj. Raymond Marsh, of the Office of Chief of Ordnance, dated May 1, 1934.  He added he did not remember why the shot was fired after 11 a.m.

Phillips in his letters, said that a historic picture of "Calamity Jane," the artillery piece that fired the last shot, and of him and a corporal, was taken "several days later."  Other sources fix the date at Nov. 16.  The picture now is displayed in the Library of Congress.

Lafayette Leader Newspaper, Lafeyette, Ind. May 26, 1960

Herbert Francis Phillips, 70, West Lafayette, Indiana, who fired the last artillery charge in World War I, died at 4:05 PM Monday, May 23, 1960, in St. Elizabeth Hospital where he had been a patient two hours.  He had been in failing health the past year.  Born in Marion, KY, he was a veteran of both World Wars with 34 years of service with the armed forces.

During World War I he served overseas in the field artillery with the rank of Captain; from 1920-35 he did ROTC work at Purdue University, retiring in 1935.  He was called to active service with the Air Corps during World War II from 1942-46. The picture of the last artillery piece fired in World War I, and Mr. Phillips; picture hang in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.  The artillery piece is called the 'Calamity Jane'.

Mr. Phillips had lived in this community for 28 years and was a member of Central Presbyterian Church and Eagles Lodge 347.  In 1924 he married Betty Davis.  Surviving are his widow; a daughter, Betty (Mrs. Robert) Weddle; a son, Robert, both of Lafayette; two brothers, Fulton of Henrietta, TX, and Isom of Villa Ridge, IL; and two sisters, Mrs. Maude Lewis of Marion, KY and Mrs. Walter Benedict of Winston-Salem, NC.

An Army escort from Fort Harrison attended the funeral service, which was held at Soller-Baker funeral home, May 25, with Dr. J. Dayton McCormick officiating.  Internment at Tippecanoe Memory Gardens,; the firing squad fired three volleys at the grave site in honor of the distinguished soldier.

   Herbert Phillips, solider standing next to the wheel of Calamity Jane.

If Herbert's niece, Marguerite Lewis Campbell, hadn't share this with me back in 2012, I would never have know about this piece of history.  I'll always be grateful to her.

One of Crittenden County's Barite Mills

 

Mico Mining & Milling Announces Operation

A group of St. Louis investors headed by Mr. Albert Balenson have started a new mining and milling operation just south of the state highway 91, one and one-half miles from Cave-In-Rock ferry landing.

To date they have completed an 8000 feet 6 inch water supply line from the Ohio River, a 16,000 gallon storage reservoir, and a barite concentration mill, consisting of a washing plant and a jig mill to process alluvial barite deposits located near the mill site. 

According to Mr. Ralph Pringle, the local superintendent, they are employing ten men at the present time and will probably double this number in the future.

The mill has been in operation for about two weeks and has reached an output of about 100 tons per day of high grade barite ore.

The company is incorporated as the Mico Mining and Milling Company and expects to make its first shipment of 1000 tons by river within the next week.

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A part of our forgotten past is a barite mill that was located a short distance off Hwy. 91 North at the end of Easley Rd.

From the April 24, 1958 Crittenden Press. 

A top view of the Mico Mining & Milling Co. barite mill just off Ky. 91 near Cave-In-Rock Ferry.  Taken from the ramp leading to the washing mill, the picture shows the conveyor belt at left which carries washed ore into the jig mill.  The conveyor on the other side of the building to the right carries processed barite, 95 percent pure, to the pile, where trucks pick it up for transportation to river barge loading facilities on the Ohio river.

A bulldozer at work in the alluvial barite deposit on the V. E. Cook property near the mill.   

Barite, or barium sulfate is sometimes called heavy spar, has a specific gravity of about 4.5 is used in drilling oil wells and for other industrial uses.

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I have no knowledge of how long this operation was in use, but it must have not been very long.