William Nathaniel Bell (March 6, 1817 – September 6, 1887), originally from

Edwardsville, Illinois Edwardsville is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Illinois, and is a suburb of St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri ...

and later a resident of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, was a member of the

Denny Party The Denny Party is a group of American pioneers credited with founding Seattle, Washington. They settled at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. History A wagon party headed by Arthur A. Denny left Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10, 1851. The par ...

, the first group of white settlers in what is now

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington. He lived in Seattle from 1851 to 1856 and then again from 1870 till his death. in 1852, Bell was a delegate at the

Monticello Convention The Monticello Convention refers to a set of two separate meetings held in 1851 and 1852 to petition Congress to split the Oregon Territory into two separate territories; one north of the Columbia River and one south. Background The influx of pe ...

that produced a petition to

US Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washingto ...

to split the

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. Ori ...

, creating the

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

, which would later become the state of Washington.

Family

His first wife, Sarah Ann Peter (daughter of Keziah Peter), died of tuberculosis in June 1856. With her, he had five children: * Laura Keziah 1842–1887 (married surname: Coffman) * Olive Julia 1846–1921 (married surnames: Stearns and Stewart) * Mary Virginia 1847–1931 (married 1872 to George W. Hall) * Alvina Lavina 1851–1857 * Austin Americus 1854–1889 His second wife, Lucy Gamble, was the younger sister of Sarah Ann.

Legacy

His family is remembered in the name Belltown, a neighborhood immediately north of

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

where his land claim was located. Bell named many of the streets in the area after his own children, including Bell Street, Virginia and Olive Streets and Olive Way (named for his daughters), and Stewart Street, named for Olive's husband Joseph H. Stewart.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, William Nathaniel 1817 births 1887 deaths History of Seattle People from Seattle People from Portland, Oregon Washington (state) pioneers