My Genealogy Hound

JOHN B. BETHELL is a native of Franklin County, Tenn., where his birth occurred March 2, 1825. He is the fourth of eleven children of Blewford and Mary (Bowen) Bethell, both of whom were natives of Virginia. The father located in what is now Owen Township, this county, in February, 1832, purchasing a tract of land upon which he remained about fifteen years, when he sold out and bought again in Pigeon Township, and here he remained engaged in farming and school teaching until near the close of his life. He died in Owen Township November 22, 1854, aged fifty-six years. The mother’s death occurred September 22, 1851. She was born February 16, 1800, and the father February 8, 1798. He was one of the most prominent and honorable citizens of the county. John B. remained with his parents, receiving a fair education, until his twenty-first year, passing his youth without noteworthy event. He then bought a farm in Owen Township, upon which he lived four or five years. In 1853 he sold out and moved to Crowville and engaged in the general merchandise, tobacco and produce business, and here he remained about twenty years doing a very profitable business the most of the time. In 1871 he moved on a farm in Campbell Township and conducted it two years, and was then forced to relinquish it to pay security. In 1874 he went to Kentucky and grew tobacco for a year, and then returned to this county, rented land and followed farming until 1880, and in February came to Boonville and engaged in the hotel business, and is thus now employed. He lost much in paying security and in unfortunate tobacco speculations. He now keeps a good public House. July 27, 1871, he married Cynthia Weston, his third wife. By his first wife he had one child; by his second wife five, and by his third wife eight; in all fourteen, of whom two are dead. He is a Mason, a Democrat and a Baptist. His wife belongs to the Christian Church. His father was a famous hunter, killing eighty-three deer in one season.