For anyone researching The Reverend Samuel B. Bell, b. 1817, Orange Co., New York state; d. Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, I have found some more information about him.

First, while researching The Rev. Manuel J. Gonsalves, a Baptist minister who must have known The Rev. Samuel B. Bell, I stumbled upon a letter Rev. Gonsalves wrote on 31 Aug 1863 to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, encouraging the President to give Bell an government appointment. This is the link to the images of the pages of that letter:
http://lincolnpapers2.dataformat.com/images/1862/08/293227.p...
From: Papers of Abraham Lincoln: Images from the National Archives and Library of Congress; Home Page - http://lincolnpapers2.dataformat.com/
Record Group 94, Entry 12: Correspondence, 1800-1947, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series), 1861-1870, NAB; Document Number 293227

That letter made me want to know more about Samuel B. Bell. I then found a nice biography of him here in the pages of the Almeda [County] (California) Gen Web site:
https://sites.google.com/site/alamedacountycagenweb/biograph...
Transcribed from:
Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
Published in Chicago by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1914
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 8/2/2008, Pages 514-517

I am not related to any family line of The Rev. Samuel B. Bell. I just stumbled upon the info in my research on Manuel J. Gonsalves and his family.

Best wishes