The Russell family line (via the U.S. and Prince Edward County)
There are two major family lines of ancestors that have the surname Russell, so I have labeled this particular branch accordingly. This particular series of ancestors traces back to their origins in England and their emigration to the New World in the 1600s. As always, it becomes more difficult to be certain of the identity of my ancestors as you go further back in time – at one point, it seemed that there were aristocratic individuals and that those who travelled to the New World were their descendents – however, for a number of reasons (not the least of which is the fact that the aristocracy did not have the motivation to immigrate), it is very unlikely that we are descended from Francis Russell (1593-1641) or any of his ancestors.
The earliest ancestor whose identity is fairly certain is one John Russell (1616-1676). Born in Ipswich in England on 1 June 1616, he married Elizabeth Rakestraw on 3 November 1639 in St. Paul’s Church, Caton, Lancashire.
In 1640, John’s occupation is listed as “orthodox congregationalist” in Woburn, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, so it would appear that they emigrated very soon after their marriage. He died on 1 June 1676, in Woburn, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, at the age of 62, and was buried in Woburn, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America.
Elizabeth Rakestraw died on 16 December 1644 – John married a second time (to another Elizabeth, surname Baker) on 13 May 1689 or 90.
There are records of one son and one daughter born to he and his first wife:
- Mary Russell (1639-1680)
- Reverend John Russell (1640-1680), who is the next in the family line of my ancestors.
An excellent secondary source can be referred to at this point, namely “Genealogy of that branch of the Russell family which comprised the descendants of John Russell, of Woburn, Massachusetts, 1640-1878“. I have used this text extensively to trace my ancestors from this point on.
Reverend John Russell ( -1680)
Russell’s genealogy suggests that the only son of John and Elizabeth was born in England, though this seems tight given that they were married in 1639 and were present in the American colonies the next year. Reverend John Russell was ordained as a Baptist minister at Boston on 28 July 1679 but died the following year. He is buried in the King’s Chapel Burial Ground in Boston.
He married a Sarah Champney of Cambridge on 31 October 1661 and they had seven children, one of whom was Joseph (1664-1714).
Joseph Russell (1664-1714)
The son of John Russell and Sarah Champney, above, he was born in Woburn, Maine on 15 January 1663. He was one of possibly 13 children (some of whom died in infancy). He married Mary Skinner (1670-1705).
Joseph died in Boston on 13 March 1713. There are some images online of a grave that some have assumed to be his, but the inscription says “aged 40 years” when Joseph was in fact 50 when he died.
His will is certainly interesting (click images to expand), and was made a few days before his death:
“In the name of God Amen the eighth day of March in the year of Our Lord 1713 I joseph Russell of Boston in the County of Suffolk Shopkeeper, being very sick and weak in Body, but of perfect mind and memoryand not knowing the wont of my present sickness to make and ordain this my Last Will and Testament that is to say principally and first of all, I give my Soul into the hands of God that gave it, and my Body to a decent burial at the discretion of my Executrix”
Thomas Russell (1705-1760)
Thomas was born in Boston on 11 July 1705 and is mentioned in his father’s will, above.
From the Boston Town and Vital Records
John Russell (1737-1813)
John was born on 12 April 1737 and died on 8 July 1813.
He married Martha Martin (1742-1798), of Bristol, on 15 October 1761. They had the following children:
- Elizabeth Russell (1762-1843)
- Jeremiah Russell, born 25 June 1764 – my direct ancestor
- John Newton Russell (1766-1794)
- Martha Russell (1768-1800)
- Amey Russell (1775-1817)
- Mehitabel Russell (1777-1798)
- Sarah Russell (1780-)
- Nancy Russell (1782-1819)
- William Russell (1785-1857)
Jeremiah Russell (1764-1843)
My direct ancestor. He married Elizabeth Cushing Howland (see the Howland family line) on 25 January 1790.
According to Russell, “Early in life he removed to Maine, living the greater part of the time at Nobleboro”.
They had the following children:
- Jeremiah Russell (1790-1821)
- Sally Taylor Russell (1792-1838)
- Deborah Cushing Russell (1794-)
- Eliza Howland Russell (1797-)
- Rowland Taylor Russell (1799-)
- John Russell (1802-1874) – my direct ancestor (2nd great grandfather)
John Russell (1802-1871)
John was born in Nobleboro, Maine, on 6 February 1802. “When a young man, he accompanied his uncle, Smith Bartlett, to Canada, and settled on a farm near Belleville.”
His first wife was Mary Babcock (1808-1864) and the two of them had 11 children, 9 of whom appear to have survived childhood.
He married for a second time to Deborah Allison Brickman (1828-1917) in Ameliasburgh Township (Prince Edward County) on 17 January 1865 (Ontario, Canada, County Marriage Registers, 1858-1869). There was a significant age difference between them (some 26 years), but all the information in the marriage register aligns with other records. Note that Deborah was 37 years old at the time of the marriage (and would have been 39 at the time of the birth of their son.
- Lewis Brickman Russell (1867-1933) – my great-grandfather
In the 1871 Canadian census (the first after confederation), the household is indicated as being comprised of John, Deborah, and Lewis, as well as Lorraine (Deborah’s mother). It also seems that one of her brothers (Alpheus) lived nearby. Below is an excerpt, but the entire page can be viewed by clicking on the image.
I was not able to find an entry for either Deborah or Lewis in the 1881 Canadian census, but
I took this photo at the Albury church cemetery in Prince Edward County, Ontario, in July 2023. Note that the date of death seems to be 5 June 1871 and that his first wife, Mary Babcock, is also interred there – there seems to be little doubt that this is the correct individual (click to enlarge), though the Russell text had put his year of death as 1874.
Lewis (or Louis) Brickman Russell (1867-1933)
Lewis was born in Ameliasburg, Prince Edward County, Ontario, on April 6, 1867. His parents were John Russell (1802-1871) and Deborah Brickman (1828-1917). The marriage of his father seems to a second one; he was previously married to Mary Ellen Babcock (1808-1864). Lewis would have been only four years old when his father died.
Lewis had several half-siblings from his father’s previous marriage – in total, three half-sisters and eight half-brothers.
At some point he moved to Manitoba (possibly with his mother, who appears on census records as being part of the household), where he married Catherine Anderson Wastle (1869-1925) on June 6, 1894. The Wastle family, originally from Great Britain, had settled in the Oak Bluff area, where Lewis and his family appeared to have lived for several years.
Lewis and Catherine had three children, two of whom lived past childhood:
- Deborah Lorraine Russell (born at Winnipeg in 1895, married Alexander McIntyre in 1921) – my maternal grandmother
- Jessie Margaret Russell (born at Winnipeg in 1896, married Arthur Day in 1927)
- Percy Gilbert Russell (born in Winnipeg in 1905, died at Kamsack in 1907)
aged 1 year and 3 months”
It appears that Lewis and his family were early settlers in Kamsack, Saskatchewan and Roblin, Manitoba, where he was the proprietor of hotels.
He was a pioneer of the Kamsack district, arriving with his family when Kamsack was still a hamlet, where he conducted a restaurant business. When the townsite was surveyed, he built the Russell Hotel, which he sold a few years later and then started farming on the west outskirts of the town. Once again he went back to hotel life, this time at Roblin, Man., and from there went to the Gladstone District to farm, where he lived until his fatal illness. (Winnipeg Tribune)
According to the 1891 census, Lewis was then living in the Lisgar area – interestingly, the enumerator of the census was Gilbert Percy Wastle, his future father-in-law.
At the time of the 1901 census, the family was living in Oak Bluff (on the outskirts of Winnipeg). It appears that his mother, Deborah, was living with them at that time.
As his son was born in Winnipeg in 1905 and died at Kamsack in 1907, it can be reasonably concluded that the family moved to Kamsack in the intervening period. Indeed, in the 1906 special census of Canada (the year following Saskatchewan’s entry into Canada), the family’s residence is shown as being in the District of Mackenzie in Saskatchewan.
In the “Land Grants of Western Canada” collection at Library and Archives Canada, he is shown as being the grantee of SW4, Township 30, Range 32, W1. There is no date, but the location is adjacent to the Kamsack townsite and is quite possibly part of the present-day town.
In photographs taken at around the time that the railway station was built in Kamsack, the Russell Hotel is visible. There are also some stand-alone pictures of the hotel, such as the one below.
Lewis’s wife, Catherine, predeceased him. He married Bertha Goodridge on 18 April 1927. The 1931 census shows that the couple lived on Government Road in Roblin.
Lewis died in Winnipeg at the age of 66, though he still lived in Roblin at the time. A number of references to his death appear in the Winnipeg and Roblin papers.
Deborah Lorraine Russell (1895-1999)
My maternal grandmother was born on April 10, 1895, at Winnipeg. She said that she lived on Balmoral Street, but I was not able to find any mention of she or her family in the city directories of the time. The first census following her birth was in 1901, and at that time (see above), she was living in Oak Bluff with her parents.
Shortly afterwards, she moved with her parents to Kamsack and later to the Roblin area.
She much preferred the name “Lorraine” to “Deborah” and so she was known by that name. She attended the Normal School in Winnipeg and embarked on a short career in teaching. She was a teacher in Roblin, Manitoba at the time that an article appeared in The Dauphin Herald that reported on a teachers’ conference (the quote is from “A Psalm of Life by Longfellow):
It would be in Roblin that she met and married her husband, Alexander (Sandy) McIntyre (1885-1971), who was the manager of the Royal Bank in that town. They were married on 14 July 1921. The couple moved to Virden some time afterwards, and later to Dryden, Ontario, where they spent some 30 years. I am not certain of the exact date that they moved to Dryden, but they do appear on the 1931 census in that town.
They had two children:
- Alexander Russell McIntyre (1923-1943), at Virden, Manitoba. Russell was killed on a training flight in England while serving with the RCAF.
- Catherine Jean McIntyre (1927-1985), at Virden, Manitoba (my mother)
Lorraine and Sandy remained in Dryden following Sandy’s retirement from the bank but eventually moved to Winnipeg to be closer to Catherine and their grandchildren.
Throughout her life, Lorraine was a keen reader and amateur painter. Well into her 80s, she attended senior citizens’ courses at the University of Winnipeg.
Lorraine passed away on May 18, 1999, just a month after her 104th birthday.
A more complete biography of my gradmother will be posted in due course.