November, 1973By: Mintie Bell Bishop
Alpena, Arkansas
THOMAS BURTON BELL was in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy (South).
He had been a prisoner during this war. He and three other soldiers were on their way home and had reached about 3 miles on the other side of the mountain from Old Carrollton, Ark., when a bushwhacker and company had been hid on the mountain top and shot all three men, leaving them there to die. He is buried somewhere on that mountainside, or below.
When he left for the Civil War he told his wife that he wanted the boys to get a good education, no matter what. He had money-greenbacks in fruit jars hid under the gooseberry vine, and if she needed money to always dig to the right and each time take a jar but always leave others to where digging to the right would always find a fruit jar of greenbacks. He also stressed to his wife that the boys must learn everything they could, and earn their way in life so they would know how to make a living.
He taught school for 25c a week each pupil, or $1.00 per month. He began to teach school when he was 17 years old. He only had an eighth grade education but he took a test, and got a teachers certificate. When a child he learned to read by a tallow wick on a string in a bucket. The string was wound around and around the tallow and then stuck out at the top. They lit the string and it burned , giving them light at night. He also was a Mail Carrier at Dogbranch, from Osage to Dover, down near Clarksville, Ark.. He taught school 3 months out of each year and farmed the rest. His wife, LOUZANA FULTZ BELL, was an herb doctor.
