Person:James Russell (108)

James, son of Joseph and Margaret, was born in 1786 in Rockbridge County, Virginia according to descendant Charles Silas Russell, who wrote: "My father's father came from Rockbridge County, Virginia, in which County my father (James Russell) was born. The family later moved to Tennessee when my father was still a boy. When quite a young man my father left home and at one time taught school. At another time he lived in Cape Girardeau where he edited a paper. My uncle, William Russell, coming from a family of ten brothers and two sisters, moved to St. Louis about 1805. He bought a farm then located in St. Louis County, from a family named Rector. After my uncle William had settled in St. Louis, my father (James) followed him, coming here about 1811 (sic, perhaps 1825). He bought the farm from his brother William which contained 432 acres comprising the original Oak Hill Property. My mother, Lucy Bent Russell, advanced part of the money paid for the farm and 100 acres of the property remained in her name. . . . My father's first wife died before he came to St. Louis. Soon after moving and when about forty years old, my father married Lucy Bent who was then about twenty." [Source: Austin Russell, Charles M. Russell, Cowboy Artist (NY: Twain Publ., 1957), p. 17 (statement by Charles Silas Russell, 4 Aug 1911).

James Russell married Elizabeth Ann O'Bannon in 1815 in Hardy County, Virginia. [Source: Hardy County Marriage Returns, p. 58, "returned on July 27, 1816," witnessed by E. Williams] She was a child of Joseph and Martha (Welton) O'Bannon. According to allen C. Tims, Joseph Neville O'Bannon was born 12 Jan 1758 in Fauquier County, Virginia, and had filed claims in Hampshire County, Virginia, in 1783 for supplies impressed and for service as a wagoner. The Hardy County, Virginia, tax lists for 1789 & 1799 list Joseph O'Bannon.]

Apparently the Joseph O'Bannon family group, including James Russell and wife, removed to Cape Girardeau County, Missouri about 1818. This timing fits between the settling of the estate of James's father in 1817 in Hawkins County, Tennessee, and the first O'Bannon and Russell land purchases in Cape Girardeau in early 1820.

On 17 Jan 1820, James Russell purchased 20 acres near Jackson on Hubble's Creek. [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book F, p. 72, abstract 1773.] On 20 May 20 1820, he purchased two lots in Jackson and on 16 Jun 1820, he purchased another lot in Jackson. [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book E, p. 364, abstract 1480, & Book E, p. 397, abstract 1516.]

James Russell died in 1850 in St. Louis. His estate administration file includes a number of documents identifying his land in Cape Girardeau County. One probate file document mentions a deed of 24 Sep 1822 relating to lots in the town of Cape Girardeau. In that deed James Russell is said to be “of the town of Jackson."

The publication of the Missouri Herald began in 1819 at Jackson by T. E. Strange. "Strange soon transferred the paper to James Russell who, in 1825, sold it to William Johnson." [Source: Robert Sidney Douglass, History of Southeast Missouri, vol. 1, p. 529.]

Note: The Cape Girardeau County deed books mentioning James Russell in events or transactions prior to 1820 describe him as "JP of Byrd Township" in Cape Girardeau County. The town of Jackson, in Byrd Township, was laid out in 1815. The "Byrd Settlement" is also in Byrd Township, about six miles northwest of the town of Jackson. The Amos Byrd family of Knox County, Tennessee, moved with their Russell in-laws to the Byrd Settlement in 1799. "William Russell, who became the husband of Pollie Byrd was a native of Scotland. Before coming to Cape Girardeau he had lived for a time in Virginia and in Tennessee. It was in Tennessee that he became acquainted with the Byrd family. He was the father of Honorable James Russell at one time sheriff of Cape Girardeau county, and member of the state legislature. William Russell was a man of education, a teacher, and conducted the first school in the Byrd settlement." [Source: History of Southeast Missouri, pp. 78-79.] One suspects that "Honorable James Russell" is the man identified as JP, although it could be an uncle, and "our" James Russell was probably not the JP.

Joseph O'Bannon was James Russell's father-in-law. On 10 Jul 1820, he purchased a tract of land on Hubble's Creek. [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book E, p. 110, abstract 1517.] Later in 1820, Joseph purchased an improvement and preemption in the Big Bend area, James Russell witness, and Joseph's son Welton also made a purchase in that area. [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826.]

On 18 Jul 1820, James Russell purchased 340.28 acres located on the Mississippi River near the town of Bainbridge in Cape Girardeau County, located by virtue of a New Madrid certificate dated 8 May 1818 (issued to Jacob Bogard). [Sources: James Russell's probate files & Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book E, p. 401, abstract 1519.]

In July 1820, James Russell & Joseph O'Bannon purchased a number of lots in the town of Cape Girardeau. On July 25, Joseph granted James a power of attorney "to bid off and purchase lots in and near Cape Girardeau, and execute notes and mortgages, jointly with him." Between July 26 & July 29, Russell and O'Bannon purchased nine lots and two outlots, and issued notes secured by mortgages on the lots. [Sources: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book E, p. 420, abstract 1536 & Book E, abstracts 1521, 1522, 1523, 1524, 1535, 1545, 1559 & 1568.]

On 25 Jul 1820, James Russell purchased two town lots in the town of Cape Girardeau from the commissioners for the division of the lands of the late Louis Lorimier. The lots were initially owned jointly by Joseph O'Bannon & James Russell but they later agreed on a dividing line. O'Bannon subsequently gave his part to Russell. The details are in a deed of 24 Sep 1822 in which Russell was described as being of the town of Jackson, Missouri. [Source: James Russell's probate files.]

On 22 Oct 1820, James Russell purchased 216 acres in the Big Bend of the Mississippi in Cape Girardeau County (part of Jabez Fisher's 640 acres of land). [Source: James Russell's probate files.]

On 20 Apr 1822, William Russell of St. Louis deeded seven tracts of land to "Martha Jane Russell and Joseph William Russell, infant children of James Russell and Elizabeth Ann, his wife, of Jackson" because of the "affection, esteem and high regard he has for them." [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book F, p. 288, abstract 2064.]

On 5 Nov 1822, Abraham Hughes and his wife conveyed to William Russell of St. Louis the 640 acres on the waters of Apple Creek where the Hugheses resided. The witnesses were Elizabeth Ann Russell, Mary Housten, and James Russell J.P. [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book F, p. 318, abstract 2095.] Previously, in 1817, William Russell of St. Louis had purchased an interest in land from the Hugheses on the waters of and five miles south of Apple Creek. Silas Bent, a J.P. From St. Louis County, and others, including William and Stephen Rector, were deed witnesses. Silas Bent was the father of Lucy, who would marry James Russell in 1826. [Source: Abstracts of Cape Girardeau County Deeds Books A/B-F, 1797-1826, Book D, p. 25, abstract 739.]

On 6 Nov 1823, 74.22 acres in Cape Girardeau County were patented to James Russell, and on the same date parcels of land of 66, 159.70, & 22.41 acres in Cape Girardeau County were patented to Joseph O'Bannon and James Russell. These three parcels were later divided by a deed of partition, and the 74.22-acre parcel was sold in 1834 to F. J. Allen. [Source: James Russell's probate files.]

James' wife Elizabeth Ann died in Jackson, Cape Giradeau County, on 19 Sep 1823. Her obituary appeared in the 20 Sep 1823 (Saturday) edition of the Jackson Patriot. "Departed this Life on Friday last, Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Russell, consort of James Russell, Esq. Editor and proprietor of this Paper, in the thirty-fourth year of her age, after a long and lingering illness, which she bore with unexampled patience. Blessed as she was with affectionate parents -- a kind and tender husband, and two interesting little children -- it would naturally be inferred that she parted with this life reluctantly. -- But very different was the reality . . . ."

On 10 Dec 1824, Joseph O'Bannon died. "Died on the 10th instant, at his residence in this County, Capt. Joseph O'Bannon, in the Sixty-Sixth year of his age. The deceased was a native of Virginia, where he resided the greater part of his life -– and by a long course of honest industry as a practical farmer, he amassed a considerable fortune. He had lived in Missouri only about five years anterior to the period of his dissolution." [Source: Jackson Independent Patriot, 18 Dec 1824.]

Capt. O'Bannon died intestate and his estate was administered in the Probate Court of Cape Girardeau County. The earliest record, a bond, is from 31 Jan 1825. The inventory was returned 4 Mar 1825; it included two notes from James Russell and one from William Russell. In a newspaper notice published in Jackson on 31 Mar 1826, announcing that there would be a sale of slaves, the persons giving the notice were listed as Welton O'Bannon, Joseph P. N. O'Bannon, and James Russell, "Guardian of Martha Jane and Joseph Wm Russell." [Source: Allan C. Tims.] The guardianship proves that James's wife had died and that the children would inherit in her place.

James Russell married Lucy Bent 28 Sep 1826 in St. Louis, Missouri.

On 12 Nov 1834, William Russell conveyed to James Russell 432.8 acres of land in township 45 south range 15 east in St. Louis County, Missouri. The land was "4 or 5 miles south west from the city of Saint Louis" and the boundaries were "east by the heirs of John D. McDonald, south by Henry Shaw on the Kemper college road, west by formerly James C. Robertson and the King's highway, and south by the heirs of John Tholozon. From this parcel is to be deducted 100 acres conveyed by a deed of January 30, 1844 from James Russell to William Russell in trust for James' wife, Lucy B. Russell." [Source: James Russell's probate files.]

On 14 Nov 1837, 146.76 acres in Cape Girardeau County were patented to James Russell. [Source: James Russell's probate files.]

The James Russell family appears still in St. Louis in the 1840 census. [Note: There was also a James Russell family in Byrd, Cape Girardeau County; this James was age 30-40 and is likely the son of William Russell, the man who helped found the Byrd Settlement.]

James died 3 May 1850 in St. Louis. His wife Lucy administered the estate.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Find A Grave.

   James Russell

2. ↑ Missouri, United States. Missouri Death Records, 1834-1931.