Jane E. Bell
Jane E Bell was born around 1855 in Virginia. She called Mount Vernon home from 1880. She lived on Brick Gard Sandvig Street with her husband, Robert E. Bell. Her mother and father, who we now know were the Blackburns, were also born in Virginia.
When going about researching Jane E. Bell and the history of her land ownership, I quickly realized how difficult it is to gather information about the history and life of African American people in Fairfax county. Many mediums of history try to silence or change the true experience of African Americans during the antebellum period. My search, then, started at the Fairfax Historic Archives, where I gathered very basic information about Jane E. Bell’s land, her tax records, and deeds form her buying and selling. After collecting these items, and gathering some other sources from the web about the location of her land, the census, and information on the experience Black women in Fairfax had during this time, I decided I needed to go back to the Archives. It was then I was able to get more information that began to paint a picture of Jane E. Bell’s life.
Anna Lopez