Guide to the Eugene Bell and Lottie Bell Papers

Eugene Bell was born in 1868 in Scott's Station, Kentucky. In 1891, he graduated from Central University of Kentucky with a B.A. He attended Union Theological Seminary in Virginia from 1892 to 1893, and graduated with a B.D. from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1894. In that year he also married Charlotte (Lottie) Ingram Witherspoon. Ordained in Louisville Presbytery, Bell served as stated supply in Troy, Hebron, and Wilmore, Kentucky, until 1895, when he sailed for Korea as a missionary for the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.

Serving first at Mokpo and then at Kwangju, Bell primarily engaged in evangelistic work. He founded and served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Korea. In addition, he helped to establish a boys' school and a girls' school at Kwangju Station. Lottie Bell died in Mokpo in 1901. From 1907 to 1923, Eugene Bell was an associate professor of Systematic Theology at the Union Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pyeng Yang (P’yongyang). He also translated into Korean "Studies in the Book of Romans" from Hodge's Commentary, and the Book of Church Order and Form of Church Government. Bell received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Centre College, Kentucky, in 1920. He died at Kwangju, Korea, on September 28, 1925.

Eugene and Lottie Bell had two children: Henry Venable and Charlotte Witherspoon. After the death of his first wife, Bell married Margaret Bull of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1904, with whom he also had two surviving children: Eugene and William. After the death of Margaret Bell in a car accident, Eugene Bell married Julia Dysart of St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1921.