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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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RUSSELL, JOSEPH (1786-1855)

RUSSELL, JOSEPH, hotel owner, shipbuilder, and Mormon convert; b. Clackmannan, Scotland, 17 Aug 1786, s/o Thomas Russell and h/w Janet; m. 1819, Ann Agnes Hunter, also from Clackmannan; d. Salt Lake City, Utah, 10 Mar 1855.

Joseph Russell arrived on the Miramichi sometime before his marriage in 1819. In the same year, his name was on the membership list of Fortitude Lodge, the first Masonic lodge to be organized on the Miramichi. By 1826 he owned real estate of some value in Chatham, including one of the more popular hotels. By 1827 he had also become involved in the shipbuilding industry, and in 1832 he bought Francis Peabody's shipbuilding yard. From this yard, where William Mason Sr acted as his master builder, he launched one vessel each year until 1838. James A. Pierce, the editor of The Gleaner, commented approvingly on several of them. "For superiority of workmanship, beauty of model, and quality of materials," he thought that the barque British Merchant, which came down the ways in 1834, could "cope with any vessel built on this river." The last two ships, the North Briton (1837) and the Majestic (1838), were among the largest to be launched locally in the late 1830s.

Russell was among the first volunteer firemen of the Chatham Fire Company, which was formed in 1824, and he was an overseer of the poor in Chatham parish. He was appointed a captain in the 1st Battalion of militia in 1840 and was henceforth known as "Captain Russell." In 1841 he was a founding director of the Highland Society.

In 1838 Russell sold his Chatham shipbuilding yard to Joseph Cunard and bought the Fraser establishment on Beaubear's Island. Between 1839 and 1850 he had about twenty ships constructed on the island. In John Harley, his master builder (after 1841), and George Burchill, his business manager, he had the most competent of assistants, and the enterprise flourished.

In 1840, or soon afterwards, the Mormon missionary Alfred Dixon visited the Miramichi, and Russell, his wife, and most of their children became converts. As the decade progressed their commitment grew, in the face of hostility expressed towards the Mormons by other residents of the Miramichi. One of Russell's sons later told about the "great dust" which was stirred up in Chatham over the Mormons, of meetings organized by his father for the benefit of visiting missionaries being disrupted by mobs ringing bells, smashing window panes, and hurling snowballs, and of his father being beaten when he tried to reason with the troublemakers. These events may have motivated the family to move their residence to Beaubear's Island in 1846 and to resolve to join the other Latter Day Saints in Deseret (Utah).

In 1848 Russell travelled to Boston to meet with William Woodruff, one of the apostles of the Mormon church, and in 1849 Woodruff returned the visit. The Mormons were experiencing a fiscal crisis at this time and desperately needed Russell's financial support. The establishment on Beaubear's Island had a book value of more than £6,000, but the Miramichi economy was so depressed that it was sold to the only available buyers, Harley & Burchill, for £1,000. Russell fared better in Liverpool, England, where he collected around £12,000 in monies owed him on ships sold there previously.

After Russell spent a number of months in Liverpool in 1850-51, collecting on debts and organizing a company to manufacture beet sugar in Utah, the family's dream of settling in 'the valley of the saints' was finally realized. As it turned out, however, he had less than four years left to live. He was sixty-eight when he died in March 1855. His widow, A. Agnes Hunter, lived in Salt Lake City until her death more than twenty years later. Their several children included the Chatham businessman George H. Russell.

Sources

[b] LDS-IGI [m] official records [d] DCB / Advocate 2 May 1877; Fraser (C); Gleaner 27 Feb 1849; Manny Collection (F182); Manny (Ships); NB Almanac & Reg.; Nielson


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