Frederic Bell was born on March 19, 1859, in Webster City, Iowa, the only child of Jairus Moffat and Helen Eliza (Somers) Bell. His grandfather Ralph Bell, of pre-Revolutionary English stock, had moved with his family to Iowa from New Woodstock, Madison County, New York. Ralph Bell, who had been a drummer boy in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, was a wagon-maker; his son Jairus became a banker at Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Educated in the public schools of Webster City and Fort Dodge, young Frederic Bell entered the University of Michigan in 1875. He graduated in 1879 with a Ph. B. degree and then pursued private studies in law.
Frederick was admitted to the bar in Minnesota in 1880 and began practice at Winona, Minnesota, then one of the lumber manufacturing centers of the state. One of his more important clients was the Laird, Norton Company. In 1882 Bell married Frances Bradley Laird, daughter of William Harris Laird, who with his cousins Matthew and James Norton had founded the Laird-Norton partnership at Winona in 1856. The Laird-Norton Company had prospered despite the depressions of 1857 and 1873. Its later success was partially due to participation in the famous "Chippewa Log Pool, " presided over by Frederick Weyerhaeuser and designed to distribute logs equitably among the various competing mills along the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers.
In 1883 Bell was instrumental in converting the Laird-Norton partnership into a corporation, and from this time on he devoted full time to the company's enterprises. He served as its assistant secretary, 1892-1900, and concurrently as director and officer in several Minnesota logging companies. He also represented the Laird-Norton group on the board of directors of the Mississippi Land Company, the Mississippi and Rum River Boom Company, and the St. Paul Boom Company and was a vice-president of the Immigration Land Company, formed to manage cutover lands in Wisconsin. In 1889 he was an original director of Northland Pine Company, which fathered several other firms and eventually owned the largest sawmill in Minneapolis. With the depletion of the pine resources of the Great Lakes States at the turn of the century, many lumbermen sought investments in the South, in Idaho, and in the fir belt of the Pacific Northwest.
Bell held directoral positions with several southern companies and, as secretary of Laird-Norton Company after 1901, he helped to form and direct the Potlatch Lumber Company in Idaho, one of the largest enterprises in the state. In the Far West Frederick Weyerhaeuser and sixteen associates, including the Lairds and Nortons, bought 900, 000 acres of timberland from the Northern Pacific Railroad to be administered by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, which was formed for this purpose in 1900. Bell became assistant secretary of the new company and gave invaluable coaching and aid to the manager, George Smith Long. Meanwhile the Lake States pine industry was declining. The huge Laird-Norton mill at Winona closed in October 1905, but the company had earlier invested in several retail lumber yards. Bell served on their boards of directors as well as on that of the Northland Pine Company, which had bought the Backus Brooks mill in Minneapolis to mill residual timber in Minnesota.
He also served as director of the Rudolph Land Company and the Rudolph Development Company, which utilized cutover lands in the Lake States. Bell helped to guide the main manufacturing interests of the Laird-Norton Company in the West after 1903. The company's original founders died between 1904 and 1917. Bell became treasurer in 1911 and president in 1917, holding the latter office until his death. In addition, when John P. Weyerhaeuser resigned from the presidency of Weyerhaeuser Timber Company in 1928 Bell accepted that office. Six years later his own health forced his retirement, and he was elevated to the chairmanship of the board.
Deeply interested in higher education, he served on the board of trustees of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, from 1913 to 1938, during the last twelve years as president. He died of pneumonia in Winona, Minnesota, five weeks after suffering a presumed stroke, and was buried there. His passing left a legacy of good will and enduring monuments in well-financed, stable, efficient, and constructive lumber enterprises.
Frederic Bell was a successful businessman specializing in lumber manufacturing. During his carrer he served as a vice-president of the Immigration Land Company; director of Northland Pine Company; secretary of Laird-Norton Company; director the Potlatch Lumber Company in Idaho; director of the Rudolph Land Company and the Rudolph Development Company; president of the Laird-Norton Company, etc.
Bell was a kindly, quiet, and friendly man. His levelheadedness was greatly respected, and many sought his prudent counsel.
On June 22, 1882, Bell married Frances Bradley Laird, daughter of William Harris Laird. Bell's only child, a son named Laird, was born in Winona in 1883.
