Cornelius Bell was born on June 30, 1832, in Tennessee to Walter and Elizabeth Bell. His father was a farmer who owned $3,300 of real estate and $17,500 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Springfield, Tennessee. He married Catherine Rogers on November 16, 1854, and they had at least three children: Walter, born around 1859; Thomas, born around 1862; and Tyree, born around 1866. In the 1856 presidential election, he supported Knox Nothing candidate Millard Fillmore. As an early biographer explained, he was “very conservative, always voting for principle and not for party.”
He worked as a farmer in Springfield, and by 1860, he owned $1,500 of real estate and $715 of personal property. A decade later, he owned $1,840 of real estate and $700 of personal property. Over the course of his life, he expanded his farm from 160 acres to 600 acres, and he operated a “first-class orchard of about 350 good bearing trees.” He died sometime after 1886.