Montgomery Bell: Tennessee Frontier Capitalist

The name Montgomery Bell is well known to residents of Davidson County and the greater middle Tennessee region. Montgomery Bell State Park is located in Dickson County, forty minutes west of Nashville, and Nashville is home to Montgomery Bell Academy. Both were named for the successful 19th century industrialist and iron master, who moved to the Cumberland River region about 1802 and helped make Tennessee the third highest iron-producing state by the mid-1800s. Authored by Nashville attorney John P. Williams, Montgomery Bell is the first full-length biography of Bell, written almost 170 years after his death in 1855.

John P. Williams is a graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy, Davidson College, and Vanderbilt Law School. He has practiced law in Tennessee since 1972 and is currently Of Counsel with the firm Tune, Entrekin & White. He is a frequent contributor to legal and historical journals. This is his first book.