Pike County Missouri Cemeteries

This Bell Cemetery is located adjacent to the Grimes Cemetery. In fact, the rock wall surrounding the Grimes Cemetery, also forms part of the rock wall on the east side of the Bell Cemetery. The Bell Cemetery is surrounded by a rock wall like that around the Grimes Cemetery, and it, too, has no gate or entrance into the cemetery. The inscriptions from this cemetery were copied Saturday, October 25, 1969, by Raymond M. and Charlene Hook. We feel there is another tombstone in this Bell Cemetery, but we did not have a probe with us. In trying to get to these two cemeteries we had to go over a four foot woven hog wire fence. We had to go over it, there was no other way to get there. We worked for two hours trying to get the tombstone for Benjamin and Sarah Gibson raised to the pint that we could read the inscription. This cemetery is in terrible condition due to the fact that groundhogs have tunneled underneath the tombstones and weakened the soil so the tombstones then fall into the groundhog holes and are partially or totally buried. For this reason we feel there is another tombstone in this cemetery, a daughter of Benjamin and Sarah Gibson, but it will be necessary to go back at some later time with a probe to determine if our theory is correct.

Our thanks go to Sara McB. for contributing this information.

BELL Miriam V., Wife of Woodson M. Turpin d. Aug. 16, 1868, Aged 23 Years, 11 Months, 22 Days

BELL Adaline b. June 11, 1824 d. Sept. 5, 1908, Aged 81 Years, 7 Mos., 21 Days )

(Triple Marker)
GIBSON Benjamin d. July 5, 1878, Aged 78 Years, 11 Mos., 29 Days
GIBSON Sarah, Wife of Benjamin Gibson, d. May 26, 1886 Aged 84 Years, 1 Mo., 21 Days

Adaline Bell was a daughter of Benjamin and Sarah Gibson. We do not know her husband’s given name. Ben and Sarah also had a daughter, b. 1825, Elizabeth, who married (Montgomery?) Bell, and I rather suspect that he was a brother of Adaline’s husband. As far as we have been able to determine, these two girls are the only children Ben and Sarah had. Miriam V., above, was Ben and Sarah’s granddaughter, daughter of Elizabeth who married (Montgomery?) Bell.

Elizabeth and (Montgomery?) Bell had four children: (1) Mariam v., b 24 Aug. 1844 in Mo., m. Woodson M. Turpin. she d. 16 Aug. 1868. (2) Benj. W., b. 24 Oct. 1846 in Mo., m. 23 Feb. 1871, Lucy Springston. Both are buried in Clarksville Cemetery, Clarksville, Pike Co., MO. The E/2 of Lot 54, Blk. 4 Clarksville cemetery was conveyed to B.W. Bell by Warranty Deed. (3)Sarah E. (Bettie), b. 1849 in Mo., m. Tom Smith (4) Adaline (Addie) m Phil Turpin.

It appears that Adaline Bell (b. 1824) and her husband ____ Bell (she was Adaline Gibson) had no children. We have not been able to find any evidence that they did.

B.W. Bell’s wife, Lucy Any Springston was the daughter of Isaac Springston and Mary Welch. she was b. 9 Mar. 1849, d. 4 Feb. 1932. A 1921 deed gives Lucy’s name as Lucy J. Bell, but her grandchildren say she was Lucy Ann. ** Lucile Brown Grimes is of the Springston line and the Family Bible says Lucy J. and family called her Lucy Jane.**

Ben Gibson was apparently well educated. The writing in a letter from him to Frank P. Wilson of Fayetteville, Ark. in 1870 evidences this, and his signature here was beautiful, but alas for the punctuation, which it lacked entirely.

Ben’s wife was Sarah Wilson before her marriage, daughter of James Wilson and Margaret (McElroy) Wilson.

We have been unable to learn anything of the parentage of Ben Gibson. There were many other Gibsons in Pike County, Mo., many right in the very community where Ben lived. There were also Sittons living in the vicinity, in fact Bettie Bell (dau. of Elizabeth Gibson b. 1825) and her husband Tom Smith lived in an old Sitton homestead there, yet we have been unable to make any connection with the Gibsons and the Sittons of the genealogy by that name published two or three years ago. Sarah had no relatives in that part of Missouri, by 1844, and how much earlier we do not know. They resided in Calumet Township, very near the Lincoln County line. Can anyone tell us what caused Ben and Sarah to move to that part of Missouri, away from any of Sarah’s family. Surely there must be an early connection between Ben and some of the other early Gibsons of Pike County.

If anyone can furnish additional information on these Gibson and Bell families and their descendants please contact Charlene Hook, 18556 East Admiral Blvd., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74138