Bell,  J.  F.,  has  precedence  as  one  of  the  leading  retail  merchants
of  Milledgeville,  in  which  he  conducts  a  fancy  grocery  of  most
metropolitan  order,  catering  to  a  representative  and  discriminating
patronage.  He  was  born  in  the  city  which  is  now  his  home,  July
20,  1871,  and  is  a  son  of  Matthew  R.  and  Susan  (Edwards)  Bell.
His  father  was  born  in  Forsyth  county,  Ga.,  and  after  the  close  of
the  Civil  war,  in  which  he  had  rendered  yeoman  service  to  the
Confederacy  as  a  soldier  in  a  Georgia  regiment,  he  removed  to
Milledgeville,  having  been  appointed,  in  1869,  steward  and  treasurer
of  the  state  sanitarium,  or  hospital  for  the  insane,  an  office  of  whicli
he  remained  incumbent  four  years,  after  which  he  held  the  office


156  CYCLOPEDIA  OF  GEORGIA

of  ordinary  of  Baldwin  county  for  the  long  terrii  of  sixteen  years.
He  remained  a  resident  of  Milledgeville,  one  of  its  well  known  and
honored  citizens,  until  his  death,  in  1899,  at  the  age  of  seventy-one
years.  Susan  Edwards  Bell  died  in  September,  1878.  J.  F.  Bell
attended  the  Georgia  military  college,  in  Milledgeville,  until  he
reached  the  age  of  sixteen  years,  when  he  secured  a  position  as  clerk
in  a  local  dry-goods  establishment.  In  1892  he  engaged  in  the  re-
tail grocery  business,  associating  himself  with  H.  W.  Compton,
under  the  firm  name  of  Compton  &  Bell,  in  the  same  quarters  now
occupied  by  Mr.  Bell,  at  No.  33  Hancock  street.  The  partnership
continued  until  1901,  when  Mr.  Bell  purchased  the  interest  of  Mr.
