Among the many brilliant, able and resourceful men who have gained positions of prominence and distinction at the bar of the Bay cities is Harmon Bell, practicing in Oakland and controlling important legal interests here and in San Francisco. He is recognized as the leader of the Oakland bar and is at the head of the law firm of Bell, Bell & Smith, with offices in the Thomson building. The record of his career is the record of worthy and upright living, of strict adherence to high personal and professional standards, of native talents and powers well used for worthy ends. These things need not be repeated to the readers of a history of this section of California, for Mr. Bell is one of Oakland's most progressive and successful native sons and his name has been known and honored here since pioneer times, his father having been one of earliest and greatest ministers of the gospel in San Francisco.
Harmon Bell was born on the 23d of March, 1855, and is a son of Rev. Dr. Samuel B. and Sophia (Walworth) Bell, the former a native of Orange county, New York, and the latter of Cleveland, Ohio, both descendants of families which were prominent in Revolutionary times. A sketch of Samuel B. Bell appears on another page of this work. Harmon Bell was reared at home and in the acquirement of an education attended Lyons Academy in Lyons, New York, and afterward Hillsdale College at Hinsdale, Michigan. He then enrolled in Washington College, a private school at Alameda, California, and at the age of twenty-two took up the study of law, a profession which had always attracted him. He entered the offices of Dirlam & Lehman in Mansfield, Ohio, whither he had gone with his father in 1875, and in the next year he moved to Kansas City, where he completed his legal studies in the office of Judge Turner A. Gill of that city. He was admitted to the Missouri bar on the 1st of May, 1878, and opened an office in Kansas City, where he continued for twenty years thereafter, becoming known as one of the most prominent and successful attorneys in the state. Success in law brought with it prominence in politics and, representing the republican party, he was elected to the state legislature, serving from 1881 to 1882 and leaving the impress of his personality and ability upon the political history of the state. Upon leaving Missouri, Mr. Bell came to San Francisco and in that city he met with his usual success in his profession, securing a large and representative clientage which connected him with a great deal of notable litigation. In 1904, shortly before the fire, he became chief counsel for the San Francisco, Oakland & San Jose Railroad and for the Oakland Traction Company, and he removed his home and office to this city, where he has since remained. He was for chief counsel for these concerns, which absorbed the various smaller traction corporations and which have done much to promote general growth and development. Mr. Bell is known throughout the Bay cities as a strong and forcible practitioner, well versed in underlying legal principle and possessed of the discriminating ability necessary to make effective application of his knowledge. His mind is incisive, analytical and deductive, quick to grasp the most intricate details of a case, while his presentation of his arguments is always clear and logical. He has thus risen to prominence in his chosen field, and his name has been coupled with the successful completion of a great deal of notable and important legal work.
In 1880 Mr. Bell was united in marriage to Miss Catherine Wilson, a daughter of A. C. J. and Margaret Wilson, who settled in Santa Barbara in pioneer times. Mr. and Mrs. Bell have become the parents of four children, two of whom, Walworth and Marjorie, died in early childhood. The elder son, Traylor W., is an attorney at law and is associated with his father, while the younger, Joseph Samuel, is still at school. The family belong to the First Presbyterian church of Oakland.
Mr. Bell's interests are almost as extensive in San Francisco as in Oakland and he is a
leading member of the city bar association. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, belonging to the Knights Templar and the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and he is a member also of the Native Sons of the Golden West and the Sons of the American Revolution. He belongs to the Athenian, Sequoia and Claremont Country Clubs of Oakland and the Transportation and Commonwealth Clubs of San Francisco. Mr. Bell is a man of sterling qualities of heart and mind and takes an active part in all matters tending to the uplift and advancement of citizenship. In 1913, when the Oakland Commercial Club was formed, he was unanimously chosen its president. The aim of the organization is to promote a greater harmony and a more united purpose in civic, commercial and industrial growth. No better selection could have been made for the head of such an organization than Mr. Bell. He at once became a power in its councils and it has grown to be a strong and potent factor in the business life of Alameda county. Mr. Bell was reelected president of the club in 1914. Politically he is a stanch adherent of the republican party and active, progressive and public-spirited in matters of citizenship, taking an intelligent interest in the advancement and growth of the community in which he resides. He is a man of great breadth of view, of progressive ideas, of high personal and professional standards and his wide experience and successful practice have placed him among the leading attorneys of the state. Those who come within the close circle of his friendship find him a broad-minded, large-hearted and liberal man, a supporter of public movements, an upholder of private morality--a man whose success has been well deserved and always worthily used.
Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
Published in Chicago by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1914
Pages 478-482
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 7/21/2008
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