BELL, THOMAS DOWNEY (1870-1955)

BELL, THOMAS DOWNEY, Baptist minister, Whitneyville and Little Southwest, 1930-35; b. Juvenile Settlement, Sunbury Co., N.B., 22 May 1870, s/o Thomas Bell and Phoebe Ann DeWitt; brother of Charles Arthur Bell; m. 1st, 1895, Mary J. Kirkpatrick, a native of Petersville, N.B., and 2nd, Ethel F. Noble, of New Maryland, N.B.; d. Springhill, near Fredericton, 20 Feb 1955.

Thomas D. Bell was a railroad laborer before he became a minister of the Free Baptist denomination and later of the United Baptist Church. Ordained in 1904, he had nine different pastorates in rural New Brunswick, mostly along the St John River, before being called to the Miramichi in 1930. He had also spent a year as a missionary at sea under sponsorship of the New Brunswick Temperance Alliance, and he never ceased being a crusader for temperance.

Bell was always physically active and enjoyed excellent health. In some of the places in which he was posted he drew plans for churches and parsonages, went into the woods to help cut the lumber to build them, and worked as a carpenter during their construction. He was also noted for the vigor of his preaching and his stentorian singing voice. It was stated that "what he lacked in academic training, he made up in aggressive Christian service." He was survived in 1955 by his second wife, Ethel F. Noble, and three children from each of his marriages. His son George R. Bell, a graduate of the Boom Road Superior School, also entered the Baptist ministry.