JOHN AND NANCY (DICKEY) RUSSELL
George Russell, Sr. was born ca 1735 in County Antrim, Ireland. It is not known when he came to America. He was married ca 1767, probably in Virginia, to Mrs. Mary "Polly" (Underwood) Whiteside, widow of John Whiteside Sr. and daughter of Joseph Underwood and Mrs. Molly (?) Brown, (Mrs. Molly (?) Brown was the widow of John Brown.) Mary (Underwood) had three children by John Whiteside: Thomas Whiteside, born ca 1754, Virginia, died 1816, Rutherford County, N.C., married Mary Kelly; Mary Whiteside Jr., born ca 1756, Augusta County, Virginia, died 1840 in Boliver, Polk County, Missouri, married Henry Kelly; and John Whiteside Jr., born 18 May 1758, Augusta County, Virginia, died 18 March 1835, Buffalo Creek, Rutherford County, N.C., married 1st to Eleanor Kelly, 2nd to Sarah Cook. Descendants of these Whiteside children are scattered all over the United States, many in upper Georgia.
George Russell, Sr. and Mrs. Mary (Underwood) Whiteside had two children: Elizabeth Russell, born ca 1769-70, Virginia, died in 1851 in Rutherford County, N.C., married there in 1786 to Charles Crawford Lewis; and George Russell, Jr., born ca 1772 in Virginia, died after the 1850 census of Camden County, Missouri, married Rhoda Reavis.
George Russell, Jr., lived about ten miles west of Rutherfordton, N.C. on Broad River, where the Hickorynut Gap crosses the river, at a plantation which was later owned by his son, George Russell Jr., John U. Whiteside, and Elias Lynch. George Russell Sr. was living at this place during the Revolutionary War when Ferguson and his army marched as far west as his home, which they plundered and then returned to the East. What money the family had was in silver. When they saw the army approaching the house they threw the bag of money in a little barrel of feathers that stood in the corner of the house. When the soldiers entered the house they began plundering and appropriating everything they saw proper to their own uses. One of them ran his arm down into the barrel of feathers, grabbed the bag of money and left. All the bedclothes and wearing apparel that the family saved were such as they carried to the swamp and were stowed away in a hogshead before the arrival of the army.
According to the Lewis Genealogy in America, pub. 1893 by William Terrell Lewis, a grandson of George Russell, Sr., George was killed in 1782 by Indians while on a bear hunt. His grave has not been located. Mary Russell survived him for many years and maintained her home on Buffalo Creek until she deeded it to her son, George Russell Jr. in 1811. She died there (Rutherford County, N.C.) on 20 June 1828.
George Russell, Jr., was married in Rutherford County, N.C. on 23 February 1791 to Rhoda Reavis who was born in Virginia on 21 September 1769. Rhoda was the eldest child of David Reavis (born 1748, died 1826, Cooper County, Missouri) and his wife, Gemima Reid (born 1750, died 1841, Cooper County, Missouri) George Russell, Jr. and wife, Rhoda Reavis, lived in Rutherford County, N.C. Following the death of his mother in 1828 George Russell Jr. moved to Haywood County, N.C. and by 1830 had moved to Macon County, N.C. We have found deeds and court minutes in both North Carolina counties of George Russell, Jr. and some of his children and allied families.
Before the 1840 census, George Jr. and Rhoda Russell are in Boone County, Missouri living in the household of their widowed daughter, Arminta (Russell) Brittain. Then by 1845 all the families of George Russell, with the exception of two sons, are in Camden County, Missouri. George and Rhoda Russell died sometime after the 1850 census of Camden County, Missouri.
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