Joseph and Lois (Bell) Taylor

Joseph Taylor was born in Connecticut about 1762. He died on June 15, 1840 at the age of 73 years. Lois Bell Taylor was born in Connecticut on February 14, 1773, and she died on December 30, 1869, at the age of 96. Joseph and Lois (Bell) Taylor were buried in the old Perkins Cemetery, but were re-interred at the current Perkins Cemetery in the 1940s. 

According to Hewson Peeke's book A STANDARD HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY, OHIO (Lewis Pub. Co., 1916), Joseph Taylor was one of several families who settled in Perkins Township in 1815. The group left Glastonbury, Connecticut and traveled by oxen train to Ohio, led by John Beatty. The settlers bought land from Mr. Beatty, and cleared the land and built log cabins. The settlement was called the "Yankee settlement." In the book MEMORIAL TO THE PIONEER WOMEN OF THE WESTERN RESERVE, we read that Mrs. Lois Bell walked most of the way from Glastonbury, Connecticut to Ohio. When the settlers reached Perkins, Mrs. Lois Bell was the only woman owning an iron kettle, and she loaned it out to her neighbors. She often assisted in putting out prairie fires in those early years of Perkins Township. In her old age, Lois Bell Taylor was blind, but she could still knit, and she was able to repeat the Gospel of John, never missing a word of its first seventeen chapters. It is said that when she died at the age of ninety-six, she had spent her life serving others.

Records in the Pedigree File portion of Family Search indicate that Lois Bell was the second wife of Joseph Taylor, and that his first wife had been Hannah Bell, most likely a relative of Lois Bell. Joseph Taylor married Lois Bell about 1805, prior to their move to Ohio. Joseph and Lois Taylor truly were Firelands Pioneers.

Elvira Dibble Bell

Elvira Dibble Bell died on October 5, 1887. She is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Erie County. Elvira was born in Connecticut, and moved to Sandusky in 1832, She married Stewart E. Bell on May 8, 1834. A 1900 "Firelands Pioneer" article had this to say about Elvira Bell: "Elvira Dibble, was an active member of the Underground Railway and assisted many runaway slaves on their way to Canada."

See the whole article in the "Firelands Pioneer" to read more about Elvira's husband Stewart Bell, and the account of how his parents left Connecticut with several other families, traveling by wagons and oxen to settle the Firelands of Ohio.

A pedigree chart on Ancestry World Tree shows that Elvira Dibble was the daughter of Jonas Dibble and Naomi Dee. Another child of Jonas Dibble and Naomi Dee was Daniel Dibble, who was known for building ships

William Dell Lindsley

William Dell Lindsley served as a Representative from Ohio in the Thirty-third Congress of the United States, from 1853 through 1855. He was a Captain in the Ohio Militia from 1840 to 1843 and as Brigadier General in 1843. Helen Hansen wrote in AT HOME IN EARLY SANDUSKY, that "the General" would often hold military drills in the public square of Sandusky. During a cholera epidemic in Sandusky, his house on South Columbus Avenue was a refuge for people from the city who wanted to escape the epidemic.

William Dell Lindsley was married to Minerva Bell. W. D. Lindsley died on March 11, 1890. Mrs. Lindsley had died in 1888. They are buried in Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery. A photograph of W. D. Lindsley is featured on the Sandusky History website.