William Bell Montgomery was born on August 21, 1829, in Fairfield District, South Carolina. His father, Hugh Montgomery, and his mother, Isabelle (Bell), were of Scotch-Irish descent and members of families that were prominent in colonial days. They moved to Mississippi in 1835 when William was only six years old, and his boyhood was spent in the country.
Montgomery was educated in the common schools of Mississippi, in Erskine College, South Carolina, and the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he was graduated B. A. in 1850.
After some years spent in agriculture in Mississippi, Montgomery became a cotton broker at Mobile, Alabama. During the Civil War, he was loyal to the South although he had opposed the war and himself took no active part in it. His health impaired by confinement in a broker's office, he returned to Mississippi in 1865, settling in Oktibbeha County, near Starkville, and resumed the practice of agriculture, which afforded him the outdoor life and physical exercise he needed. He introduced new grasses, began to raise fancy Jersey cattle, and soon became a leader in his section of the state, doing much, during a period of more than thirty years, to advance livestock and agricultural interests in Mississippi. When the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the state was established in the seventies, he was appointed a local trustee and served as such for a period of twenty-six years.
In 1875, Montgomery founded the Live Stock Journal of which he was an editor, publisher, and owner. It was succeeded the next year by the Southern Live Stock Journal, published at Starkville and edited by his son. He continued to contribute articles to the new periodical, which for a time ranked as a leading agricultural magazine in the S. In 1870, he founded the Starkville Female Institute, which was operated successfully for a number of years until the property was purchased by the City of Starkville and rebuilt as a public grammar-school.
Montgomery was married first, in 1852, to Julia Gillespie, daughter of Dr. William and Marjorie Gillespie of Starkville, Mississippi, and second, in 1865, to Sarah A. Glenn, daughter of William and Elizabeth Glenn. Five children were born to each marriage, and surviving members of the family continue to live in the old homestead.
15 May 1796 - 2 September 1849
16 March 1797 - 5 May 1891
3 December 1818 - 27 September 1822
16 June 1832 - 27 July 1905
3 December 1823 - 7 May 1844
8 November 1825 - 18 December 1842
22 April 1830 - 11 January 1864
21 March 1841 - 13 January 1932
25 April 1873 - 26 August 1908
30 December 1870 - 25 August 1871
20 April 1879 - 10 August 1899
8 Junuary 1862 - 30 November 1953
2 June 1857 - 25 January 1940
17 June 1855 - 24 September 1895
9 October 1852 - 15 October 1908
13 June 1876 - 25 June 1885
12 October 1868 - 12 March 1872
6 January 1864 - 13 April 1865
