James

 Below is an abridged version of a tentative chapter for a work on the Russell family history, expanded from articles on this blog from yesteryear. The master family history document from Aunt Sarah to which it refers can be accessed here in an earlier draft of this material.

https://jeromehistory.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-russell-family-history.html

Comments are very welcome, either on the blog or back-channel. If anyone can think of any further lines of research that can be explored for James, please do say. If any want to check the material and see if I have inadvertently omitted something, again your help is appreciated.

 

JAMES

James was the oldest of the ten Russell children who survived to adulthood, and was born c.1796. His register of death from 1847 simply states that he came from Ireland. He will have been one of the first to go to America, paving the way for others. His history, as given by Aunt Sarah, suggests a possible trail-blazer, a patriarch of the family, but he ended up in Pittsburgh and died comparatively young, five years before CTR was born. Aunt Sarah tells us that James married Sarah Ann Risk. We learn elsewhere in the document that the Risk family were Episcopalians in Faun, Ireland (which is most likely Fahan in County Donegal), and father George Risk (married to a Sarah) was an excise officer. We also note from the history of Alexander Russell, who we will come to later, but who married Sarah Ann’s sister, Margaret, that James and Sarah were already a married couple in America in Elmwood Hill, New York, by 1832.

James’ history gives us a field for ongoing research. Quoting directly from Aunt Sarah:

“James was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, conducted his Collegiate and Commercial Institute at Elmwood Hill, Bloomingdale, N.Y. now included in Central Park near West 103^rd Street.”

So he started his education in Dublin but completed it in New York.

Trinity College, Dublin, was founded in 1592. Famous alumni include James Ussher (he of Bible chronology), literary figures like Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith and later Oscar Wilde, philosophers like Edmund Burke, and statesmen like Eamon de Valera. it was specifically founded as an educational institution for Protestants who supported the established church. That meant Anglicans; non-conformists like Presbyterians would have issues. As for Roman Catholics, they were basically barred by a required oath until 1793. Matters were then relaxed somewhat and religious tests were abolished by Act of Parliament in 1873, at which point the Irish Catholic Bishops banned their flock from enrolling. The matter was not finally resolved until 1970.

By the time James enrolled Protestants of all shapes and sizes could attend. The original emphasis on theology gradually broadened to include a whole range of subjects, including mathematics, medicine, law, science and engineering.

The enrolment records for Trinity have survived. Examining the lists of those who enrolled between 1803 and 1829 (which are in two volumes covering 1803-1814 and 1815-1829) there are twenty Russells in total on the books – but only one James.

This solitary James was entered for enrolment on 3 November 1823 and “put on the books” as the register puts it, on 22 November 1823. His tutor is listed as W. Harte.

At this time, if this was OUR James he would have been in his late twenties. One might expect the James Russell in Aunt Sarah’s account to have attended college a little earlier in life. However, this is the only James found in extant enrolment records for Trinity College, and they do appear to be very comprehensive.                   

By 1832 James is in America. He is married to Sarah and they are living in Elmwood Hill, New York. Aunt Sarah records that

“James and Sarah having no children ‘adopted’ Thomas Russell, son of (his brother) Alexander.”

This Thomas Russell was born in 1833.

At some point James and Sarah moved from New York to Pittsburgh. There is a James Russell in the 1840 Pittsburgh census, but no guarantee it is the right one.

However, on Monday, 16 October 1843 The Pittsburgh Daily Post newspaper published a list of letters waiting at the Post Office for collection. It was a new feature of the newspaper that, regrettably for researchers, only started that year.

In the paper for 16 October, and repeated over the next two days, there was a letter waiting for James.

We can assume this is the James who is married to Sarah.  Next to him in the list, also with a letter to collect, is his brother, Joceph (sic) L(ytle) Russell. A few weeks later in the issue for 18 November 1843 the list included Charles T(ays) Russell, so it appears that all three brothers were in Pittsburgh together by 1843. We will return to Joseph and Charles later.

James obviously intended Pittsburgh to be became a permanent home because in 1846 he bought one of the first grave plots to go on the market in the new Allegheny Cemetery.  He and his extended family were going to stay there. Forever. Literally.

Insert background material on the Allegheny Cemetery and also the Russell family burial plot (Section 7, Plot 17) taken and expanded from here:

https://jeromehistory.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-russells-and-allegheny-cemetery.html

There is logic to what happened in the cemetery. James bought the family plot because, first: he was the oldest in the family who survived to adulthood, and second: because his wife Sarah was seriously ill and not expected to recover. James was born ten years ahead of his brother Charles Tays and seventeen years ahead of his brother Joseph Lytle.

Although the Allegheny cemetery was ‘the future’ it took a little while to gain momentum. Initially the take-up was very small. In its first year, 1845, from the opening in September to the end of the year there were only eight burials in total on the one hundred acre site.

In 1846 it was still very small; there were only 29 new interments. These included Sarah Russell. One must assume that James had the pick of many potential family plots; his choice then being dictated partly by cost, but also by situation and outlook.  However, total interments were 67 that year, because there were also 38 re-burials. It was increasingly common in the early days to remove bodies from city cemeteries at the request of relatives, who wanted a more congenial final resting place for their whole family.

So by the end of 1846, a grand total of 75 burials or re-burials had taken place at the cemetery. Sarah died of consumption in the December; her burial registration number is 73.

Almost exactly one year later, in December 1847, James died. His burial registration number is 264. He was laid to rest next to Sarah in the top row of two on the plot, the one furthest from the roadway. James died of paralysis, so one assumes he suffered a fatal stroke at the age of 51.  Here is his small stone grave marker.

Below are the register pages for James. His details are about half way down the page. On the left page we have date of interment (26 December 1847), interment number (264), name of the deceased (James G Russell), place of death (Allegheny City). On the right hand page we have age at death (51), cause of death (paralysis), plot number and cemetery section (17 G) and comments (no entry).

 

In summary: of Thomas and Fanny Russell’s ten children who lived to adulthood, James appears as the oldest, the firstborn. He may have been a pioneer, one of the first of the family to travel to America, specifically to New York. By Aunt Sarah’s account he was well educated. What might he have accomplished had he lived? But sadly, he was to die comparatively young, several years before CTR was born. Hence, he was to be forgotten by history.

An Extract...

...from a potential future book on the Russell’s Family History.

The aim of this extract is to very briefly trace why a family like the Russells ended up in America as they did.

Comments welcome on whether it all makes sense (or not) and whether the narrative –as far as it goes – accurately describes the passage of history.

Leave a comment here or send back-channel.

 

THE ROAD TO PITTSBURGH

To be Presbyterian and Scottish-Irish in 19^th century America meant that your family would have followed a certain well-trodden (and somewhat nomadic) path in history.

We will start in Ireland – specifically what is now known as Northern Ireland.

Historically, Russell – whether as a forename or a surname – goes back to the Norman Conquest and may be linked to a place in Calvados, Normandy, called Rosel or Rozel. It also may be derived from an Anglo-Norman nickname from Old French for red-haired. As we will see later, in Irish history it is recognised as a Protestant name. There were many Russells in what is today known as Northern Ireland at the start of the 19^th century. Other common names in the region at the time were Lytle (sometimes spelled as Lytel and which is thought to comes originally from Little) and Tay or Tays (possibly named after the Scottish River Tay). As an alternative explanation the Ulster Historical Foundation has suggested that the surname “Tease” which was common in the area (perhaps from the River Tees in England’s Durham and Yorkshire region) could sound like “Tays” when said with a strong Ulster accent.

It was common for surnames, perhaps of mothers, to be preserved as the middle name for a new generation. This helps explain names like Joseph Lytle Russell and Charles Tays Russell with its variant spelling Charles Taze. This can also assist in tracing a family tree backwards. It was also common, as it is today, for forenames to be repeated in families down the generations. Of course, when people had large families, they soon ran out of repeatable forenames.

As noted above, the Russell family were of Scots or Scottish-Irish ancestry; early records using the term Scotch-Irish ancestry. We will try and standardise our usage hereafter with the older expression Scotch-Irish, simply because that was the term in general use during CTR’s lifetime.

This links this Irish population with Scotland if you go further back in history. It also links them with the Presbyterian Church.

The Reformation was never a clear-cut affair. While England broke away from the Catholic Church in the time of Henry VIII and the Church of England formed in 1534, in places like Scotland their reformation began in 1560 with the influence of John Calvin and the local John Knox.

The Scottish model became Presbyterian, referring particularly to how the church was controlled and how much the civil authorities were involved in governance. In the Church of England the State was involved with church appointments, but at one point the Scottish church abolished the position of bishop and threw out the Church of England’s prayer book.

As events played out, there was a lot of pressure on Presbyterians to join the Church of England, and this caused some from the Scottish Lowlands and also Northern England to emigrate from the 17^th century onward. In addition, the Highland Clearances of the 18^th century forced many others in Scotland to leave their homes. The British Government was keen to encourage these people to move to Ireland with land grants like the Plantations of Ulster from the early 17th century onward. Of course, land grants for an incoming population would result in the displacing of some of the existing population.

Short-term it met two objectives. On the one hand it damped down tensions and poverty in Scotland and the Borders, and on the other a Protestant and English speaking settler community would help dilute both the language and Catholic faith of the native Irish in the area. Other events would shape the intervening years, but long-term it would contribute to a civil war and the country partitioned. Today we have the north loyal to the British Crown and the south independent. The political consequences of those 17^th and 18^th century decisions still rumble on today.

The Protestant communities that subsequently developed in the north of Ireland were Presbyterian for the most part from their Scottish roots. As economic conditions became difficult in this new homeland a number decided to move on again. For many, the “promised land” was America. The term Scotch-Irish eventually came to be used in America to identify this wave of Protestant immigrants. It distinguished them from the large numbers who came from Ireland a little later because of the potato famine. The latter were predominantly Roman Catholic.

It is very easy to merge all those who emigrated into one group, but that would be wrong. Zydek’s book Charles Taze Russell, The Man and His Message, paints a vivid picture of the coffin ships that brought hundreds of thousands of starving Irish to America. It is well written, but Zydek assumes that this is how Charles TAYS Russell reached America as the first of his clan to make the journey, and gives the date as 1838.

However, both the timing and the geography are wrong. We will see that the first known wave of Russells to hit American shores came around 1820, and the really vast crowd of starving Irish refugees arrived over twenty years later. Although there would be overlap, generally they were from different parts of Ireland. As already noted, the Russells were from the north of the country. The potato famine that overwhelmed the country started in 1845 and was particularly disastrous for the rural poor who were mainly in the west and south – and Catholic.

Population growth, absentee landlords, tenant farmers having to split their land into thousands of smallholdings, all meant that subsistence farming had to rely on potatoes. It was the only crop that could just about feed a family off the land. It was a disaster waiting to happen. When the crop failed due to potato blight, it is estimated that a million died from starvation. Over a ten-year period more than two million left the country, many going to America.

Those who were part of the earlier diaspora like the Russells may have come originally from Scotland, or they may simply have been lumped into that catch-all Scotch-Irish title. Either way, they were Protestants – Presbyterians – who lived in the region of County Donegal (from Charles Tays Russell’s grave marker) and Londonderry (from Joseph Lytle Russell’s newspaper obituary). Donegal and Londonderry border on each other. Today Donegal is the northernmost county in the Republic of Ireland, and Londonderry (often shortened to Derry) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland.

A key industry in what we now call Northern Ireland was the production of Irish linen. The climate and soil were suitable for the growing of flax, and French Huguenot refugees brought their weaving skills to the country in the late 17^th century. It became a huge cottage industry, especially when the British opposed the Irish woollen industry as a commercial threat. But in the early part of the 19^th century hand-spinning production faced severe competition from factory machine-spinning as the industrial revolution trampled all before it. Even so, prior to the First World War, Belfast in the north was still the largest linen-producing area in the whole world, and had the nickname, “Linenopolis.” But changing times and uncertainties of the 19^th century would cause some in the industry to look to America, both for markets and a home. So we have Charles Tays Russell, who reportedly came to America to work with Irish-born Alexander Turney Stewart. Stewart founded a dry goods empire which included importing Irish fabrics, before later cleaning up making uniforms for the Union side in the American Civil War. There will be more about Charles Tays later. One step further on from importing and selling linen we have Charles Tays’ one-time business partner – his brother Joseph Lytle Russell, establishing a dry goods store – a business that was expanded in due course with his son, CTR. The location of Pittsburgh, with its grime and industry, made the selling of shirts a reasonable commercial prospect.