Josiah Hughes Bell, born August 22, 1791, in Chester District, South Carolina, was a member of Stephen F. Austin's original 300 colonists. After his father died when he was five, he went to live with family in Tennessee and learned the trade of hatter. While living in the Missouri District, he became friends with Moses Austin and Stephen F. Austin, joined the Missouri Mounted Militia as a second lieutenant during the War of 1812, and after the war visited his mother in Tennessee, where he met his future wife, Mary Eveline McKenzie. They married in 1818 in Kentucky, operated a mercantile business in Natchitoches, Louisiana, for two years, and then moved to Hemphill, Texas. In 1821, Austin granted Bell permission to settle in the new colony near New Washington. There Bell served as alcalde, constable, and judge, and even took over Austin's duties while Austin traveled in Mexico. Bell and his family moved several times along the Brazos River before settling in Columbia near the present-day cemetery. He laid out two towns, developed a sugar plantation, built the first hotel in the area, and began the Bell family home, completed in 1827, which was often used as Stephen F. Austin's office when he was in town. Bell and Austin maintained their friendship through correspondence about tax laws, Mexican government regulations, and education in the colony. Bell died on May 17, 1838, and was buried in the cemetery that his wife later gave to the citizens of West Columbia.