Arkansas Historical Quarterly article in JSTOR Digital Library
Dr. Thomas Russell:
Founder of Russellville1
Founder of Russellville1
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Edited by Walter L. Brown2 3
Fayetteville
Dr. Thomas Russell
(photo is from another source and did appear in JSTOR, The Arkansas Historical Quarterly,
nor the Russellville Democrat article.)
Russellville Democrat
June 18, 1885
Thomas Russell M. D.
Judson D. Russell & Co., publishers of New York, are preparing a history of the Russell family in the United States, and the following biographical sketch of Thomas Russell, M. D., after whom our beautiful little city was named, and brief history of the town he founded, will appear in the forthcoming volume.4 We produce the article, knowing that it will be read with interest by the many friends of the subject of the sketch and his honored decendents who are now residing in our midst:
Doctor Thomas Russell, the founder of Russellville, Arkansas, was born in the Parish of Gateshead, in the county of Durham, England, June the 13th, A. D. 1801. His parents were John and Hannah Russell. After enjoying the advantages of some of the literary institutions of England, in which he acquired considerable classical knowledge, he served an apprenticeship of five years, under Doctor Thomas Mitchell, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London. In 1825 he entered Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals, London. From these institutions he received numerous certificates for attendance upon lectures, and for proficiency in the various departments, and succeeded in carrying off two first prizes, namely: the Demonstrators prize in Dislocation, and the Demonstrators prize in Mid-wifery. In 1826 he graduated at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, thereby becoming a member of that body.
After traveling extensively in the Continental countries of Europe, he came to America, A. D. 1829, and settled near Carlyle, Illinois, where two brothers, James, and Edward Russell, had preceded him. Here he was married to Mary A. Graham, A. D., 1832.5 In search of a new home and a milder climate, he came to Arkansas, and located in the Arkansas River Valley, A. D. 1835, one year prior to the admission of the State into the Union.6 He was eminently successful both as Physician and Surgeon, performing surgical operations that baffled the skill of others. When the civil war arose in 1861, he had acquired considerable property, but the greater part of this was swept away by the privations and desolations of war.7 He continued an active practitioner until the spring of 1866 when he was stricken with Pneumonia which caused his death April 13th. He was a man of strong will, remarkable memory and vigorous intellect.
There now survive him his widow,8 Mary A. Russell, and five sons, all of whom reside at Russellville, except Albert Russell,9 who is at Challis, Custer county, Idaho, Jas. W. Russell,10 Alva Russell11 and Thos. J. Russell12 are engaged in mercantile pursuits; Lawrence Russell is a lawyer.13
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RUSSELLVILLE
About the year 1842, when but a small hamlet, this place was named, by a majority vote of its citizens, Russellville, in honor of Doctor Thomas Russell, who was at the time one of the principal land owners, and a prominent citizen. The growth of the village was slow, and up to 1872 it had only developed into a small town. But in 1872-73 when the Little Rock & Fort Smith railway was constructed along this valley the growth of the town received an impetus which gave a gradual development for several years, and at present the population numbers about fifteen hundred.
Among the most important enterprises of the place are its gins, planing mills, grist mill, marble works, foundry, wagon and plow factory, cotton factory, and newspaper, the Democrat. It has a high school building, a Masonic hall, and four church edifices; the Baptist, the Methodist Episcopal, the south Methodist and the Cumberland Presbyterian.
The central location of the town on the line of the Little Rock & Ft. Smith Ry.; the proximity of the Arkansas river (three miles south), with its fertile bottoms; the adjacent hills with their cool springs, and soil admirably adapted to the growth of fruits and vegetables give this little city a future bright with promise.
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1 The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter, 1961), pp. 388-391 (4 pages)
2 Associate Professor of History, University of Arkansas
3 The sketch… was copied from the Russellville (Arkansas) Democrat, June 18, 1883. It is about Dr. Thomas Russell, (January 13, 1801 – April 13, 1866) who gave his name not only to the City of Russellville but also to numerous progeny, many of whom still live in Russellville. Much of the material in the sketch later appeared in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas. . . . (Chicago: Southern Publishing Company, 1891), 251. The editor is indebted to Miss May Russell, granddaughter of the subject of the sketch and a resident of Russellville, for information about the Russell children. Her article entitled “The Dr. Thomas Russell Family” made up the entire issue of Arkansas Valley Historical Papers, Volume I, Number 1 (April, 1934).
4 The editor found no record of this history ever being published
5 Mary Ann Graham (December 9, 1814-January 21, 1890) was born in Pennsylvania and moved with her parents first to Tennessee and then to Illinois. She and Dr. Russell were married near Salem, Illinois, October 11, 1832. Mary Ann’s name is much associated with Cumberland Presbyterian history in Pope County. She became a member of Shiloh Cumberland Church (organized in 1833) soon after arriving in Arkansas and while Russellville was still a village gave the lots at the corner of Main and Fargo Streets, opposite the present United States Forestry Building, on which a Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized January 29. 1871.
6 According to May Russell, the doctor bought the “first house on the present site of Russellville.” This was a one and a half story hand-hewn loghouse that stood until 1898 on what is now the corner of Main and Houston Streets. The home was built in 1834 by J. C. Holledger.
7 Dr. Russell and Mary Ann, with their two youngest sons, Thomas Jefferson and Lawrence, were refugees in Texas during the last months of the Civil War.
8 The Thomas Russells had other children not mentioned here. William Frederick (August 20, 1833 – June, 1835) died as an infant near St. Louis while they were en route to Arkansas Territory in 1835. Their eldest daughter, Mary Jane (May 26, 1838 – April 2, 1861), was the second wife of Dr. J. W. Pruitt of Russellville. Their only other daughter, Eleanor (February 2, 1851 – August 16. 1874), died in girlhood. John Thomas (August 12, 1836 – January 29, 1857), their second son, who intended to follow in his father’s footsteps in the medical profession, died from tuberculosis contracted during his medical studies in Philadelphia. Their third son, Alfred Alexander, lived from February 12, 1843 to March 14, 1843. Oscar (December S. 1846 – October 3, 1864), a twin brother of the Alva mentioned in this sketch, died at Camp Greer, near Houston, Texas. He and Alva had joined the Confederate Army as drummer boys when they were but sixteen years old.
9 Albert Russell (March 23, 1844 – n. d.), who remained a bachelor, spent most of Iris life in the gold fields of the West in search of good fortune and good health. He died in Lower California, the date unknown.
10 James Washington Russell (June 6, 1840 – October 17, 1929), who also remained a bachelor, was a captain in the Confederate Army, serving throughout the four years of the war. After the war he and two of his brothers entered the mercantile business in Russellville.
11 Alva Russell (December 4, 1846 – November 19, 1887). whose daughter May Russell still lives in Russellville, was a drummer boy in the Confederate Army in Texas, where his twin brother Oscar died in 1864. He returned home and entered the mercantile business with his brothers after the war, marrying Ann Williamson in 1868. A prominent Cumberland Presbyterian, Mason, and school leader, he died in November, 1887.
12 Thomas Jefferson Russell (March 1, 1849 – December 24, 1915) was married December 21, 1870, to Susan Mildred Williamson, a first cousin of his brother Alva’s wife. He, Alva, and James were merchants together in Russellville. In 1908 he moved to Arizona seeking a drier climate inn his health. He died in Tucson. In 1961, two of his six children are still living — Miss Ruth Russell, a retired assistant librarian of the University of New Mexico, now residing in Artesia, New Mexico and Estelle R. Hogins of Russellville.
13 Lawrence Russell (August 3, 1855 – December 26, 1915), the youngest son of Dr. Russell, was still a lad when his father died. He graduated from the Arkansan Industrial University, Fayetteville, in 1880 and later took a degree in law at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee. He was prominent in Pope County politics, serving as prosecuting attorney of the circuit court and as a member of the house of representatives for two terms from 1891 to 1893. He entered the ministry in 1906 and served Presbyterian pastorates in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. He was married in later years to Miss Stella Teeter of Ohio. He was living in Indiana with his wife and daughter Florence, who died several years ago leaving no heir, when he died.