Bell Town (also known as Belltown) is an unincorporated

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...

community located in southern

Cheatham County Cheatham County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41,072. Its county seat is Ashland City. Cheatham County is located in Middle Tennessee, and is part of the Nashville-Davidson� ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

History

Bell Town has traditionally been an

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

community. Folk history has it that the traditional residents are descendants of the

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

Middle Tennessee Middle Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee that composes roughly the central portion of the state. It is delineated according to state law as 41 of the state's 95 counties. Middle Tennessee contains the state's capital an ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

master Montgomery Bell; as Bell was widely reputed to have had several slave mistresses, many inhabitants claim descent from Bell via these women. A

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

was located here until it was closed by

racial integration Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation), leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of Race (classification of human beings), race, and t ...

in the 1960s; the renovated building later served as an office for a religious ministry and as a restaurant before being demolished in the late 2010s. In the last two decades there has been considerable growth in the area, including, as racial attitudes have softened, a considerable influx of

whites White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. De ...

. Apparently, Bell Town has never had a

United States Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal serv ...

; the community's address is

Kingston Springs, Tennessee Kingston Springs is a town in Cheatham County, Tennessee, Cheatham County, Tennessee, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 2,824. History This is a new addition to this page with updates anticipated ...

. As neither Kingston Springs nor the nearby community of White Bluff have traditionally had an appreciable black population, Bell Town has served the purpose of providing these two towns with a black-oriented residential area, a purpose the community still functions in to some degree. As Bell Town is neither an

incorporated town An incorporated town is a town that is a municipal corporation. Canada Incorporated towns are a form of local government in Canada, which is a responsibility of provincial rather than federal government. United States An incorporated town o ...

nor a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

, any estimate of its population is of necessarily limited accuracy due to the absence of any well-defined boundaries, but is generally regarded to be less than 200 persons.

Geography

Bell Town is located along U.S. Highway 70.

Cemetery

The Bell Town Cemetery is a historic cemetery that has been used by African Americans for generations. In 2017, the cemetery was an area of conflict when neighboring white landowners denied family members of the buried persons access to the graves.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Cheatham County, Tennessee Unincorporated communities in Tennessee