14 Facts About Montgomery Bell

Montgomery Bell was a manufacturing entrepreneur who was crucial to the economic development of early Middle Tennessee.

Montgomery Bell was known as the "Iron Master of the Harpeth" and the "Iron Master of Middle Tennessee".

Montgomery Bell's father, John Bell, was an Irish emigrant to the United States.

Montgomery Bell moved to Middle Tennessee and became involved in the iron business purchasing James Robertson's iron works at Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, in 1804 for $16,000.

Montgomery Bell expanded his operations and built other furnaces and mills including a hammer mill south of Charlotte, in Tennessee on Jones Creek using water power.

Montgomery Bell built another forge and hammer mill called "Pattison Forge" after his mother's maiden name.

Montgomery Bell finished a tunnel approximately 100 yards long through a narrow limestone and sandstone ridge from a point seven miles upstream creating a 4-foot fall to operate his hammers and forge.

Montgomery Bell named another of his iron works "Worley Furnace" after James Worley, a slave.

Montgomery Bell made the Narrows his operational headquarters and built a home there which he called Montgomery Bell View.

Montgomery Bell suffered losses in the Panic of 1819 and in 1824 he advertised the Narrows and other properties for sale in the Nashville Whig.

Montgomery Bell offered to sell his ironworks to the US Army for an Armory but floods on the Harpeth were well known and that idea failed.

Montgomery Bell sold the ironworks to Anthony Wayne Van Leer, who was a member of a well known historical family in Pennsylvania and noted in the anti-slavery cause.

Montgomery Bell died on April 1,1855, in Dickson County, Tennessee which location became Cheatham County in 1856.

Montgomery Bell was buried near the Narrows property in a cemetery near his Bell View home.