The Bell Family, The Pearl, and the Sacred Thread that Still Holds Us.

Can I share a story with you?

My daddy’s name was Ronald.

His father’s name was Charles.

Charles’ father’s name was Percy.

Percy’s father’s name was Henry.

And somehow—Henry Bell was family to Lucy Bell.

Often, when enslaved women and men were sold to new enslavers, they kept the surname as a brand, a marker of where they had been. So, when Lucy was sold to the Greenfield family, she kept the name, Bell—and so did her children.

Lucy Bell was sold from the Eastern Shore and enslaved by the Greenfield family right outside Washington, D.C. She lived in a world where her body was owned; her movement was controlled, and her future was negotiated without her consent. And yet, even there, life made a way forward.

One of Lucy’s children was Daniel Bell.

Daniel Bell married Mary Bell. Together, they built a family under the constant shadow of a system designed to break them. At one point, Daniel had been promised his freedom. But his enslaver died before completing the legal paperwork, so that promise died with the enslaver. The enslaver’s wife refused to honor it. She insisted that Daniel remain enslaved.

But Daniel Bell refused to accept captivity as his last chapter.

Instead, Daniel began organizing.

He joined with other enslaved people, free Black men and women, and white allies who were willing to risk their safety and their standing. And they met—right here—at Asbury United Methodist Church!

Inside these walls, they prayed! They planned! They hoped!

And then, on April 15, 1848, Mary Bell—Daniel’s wife—along with 76 other enslaved men, women, and children, boarded a schooner called The Pearl. Their destination was freedom. That night became what historians now recognize as the largest recorded escape attempt of enslaved people in American history.

They were discovered. They were recaptured. They were imprisoned. Many were sold further South as punishment.

And yet, their act of resistance shook the nation! It strengthened the abolitionist movement. It exposed the moral contradictions of a country that preached liberty while practicing bondage.

The courage of those escaped slaves did not end that night. It multiplied! It echoed! It endured…Through generations who carried: THEIR names, THEIR stories, and THEIR prayers that these courageous escaped slaves may not have fully understood.

And now, one hundred and ninety (190) years later, I stand here as pastor of the very church where Daniel Bell once gathered. The same church where freedom was whispered, where escape was imagined, where faith refused to die.

What are the chances?

What are the chances that the descendants of people connected to that story would one day stand in this pulpit?

What are the chances that the prayers prayed in secret would one day become sermons preached in freedom?

There is only one answer I know how to give:

We have come this far by faith!

  • Faith that refused to die in Lucy.
  • Faith that refused to surrender in Daniel.
  • Faith that stepped onto a boat in Mary.
  • Faith that survived every attempt to erase it.

And now, that same faith lives on in our story—here at Asbury United Methodist Church, 190 years later.

Their story is not just history.

It IS inheritance!

Beloved, we have come this far by faith!  Amen.

Dr. Ron Bell, II