Bell Town, Tennessee

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Bell Town, Tennessee
Unincorporated community
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Bell Town, Tennessee
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Bell Town, Tennessee
Coordinates: 36°06′46″N87°09′29″W / 36.11278°N 87.15806°W / 36.11278; -87.15806 [1]
Country United States
State Tennessee
County Cheatham
Elevation
758 ft (231 m)
Time zone UTC-6 (Central (CST))
 • Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code
37082
Area code 615
GNIS feature ID1276948 [1]

Bell Town, Tennessee (also known as Belltown) is an unincorporated rural community located in southern Cheatham County along U.S. Highway 70. [2]

Bell Town has traditionally been an African American community. Folk history has it that the traditional residents are descendants of the slaves of Middle Tennessee ironmaster Montgomery Bell; [3] as Bell was widely reputed to have had several slave mistresses, many inhabitants claim descent from Bell via these women. A primary school was located here until it was closed by racial integration in the 1960s; the renovated building later served as an office for a religious ministry and as a restaurant before being demolished in the late 2010s.

In the last two decades there has been considerable growth in the area, including, as racial attitudes have softened, a considerable influx of whites.

Apparently Bell Town has never had a United States Post Office; the community's address is Kingston Springs, Tennessee. As neither Kingston Springs nor the nearby community of White Bluff have traditionally had an appreciable black population, Bell Town has served the purpose of providing these two towns with a black-oriented residential area, a purpose the community still functions in to some degree.

As Bell Town is neither an incorporated town nor a census-designated place, any estimate of its population is of necessarily limited accuracy due to the absence of any well-defined boundaries, but is generally regarded to be less than 200 persons.

Cemetery

The Bell Town Cemetery [4] is a historic cemetery that has been used by African Americans for generations. [5] In 2017, the cemetery was an area of conflict when neighboring white landowners denied family members of the buried persons access to the graves. [5] [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Bell Town, Tennessee
  2. ↑ Cheatham County General Highway Map (PDF) (Map). Tennessee Department of Transportation. 2000. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
  3. 1 2 Davis, Kimberly (November 18, 2017). "Bell Town Cemetery Under Investigation". WTVF. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  4. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Bell Town, Tennessee
  5. 1 2 Bliss, Jessica (August 29, 2017). "Tensions flare between descendants, landowners over access to family cemetery". The Tennessean. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
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