William Russell
was born in Ireland in 1782. He was left an orphan at an early age. He came to the United States alone in 1796 at the age of fourteen. He remained a short time in Philadelphia and while there began to learn a trade, that of hatter. He went from Philadelphia to Maysville, Kentucky, took up hat making and followed it. While there, he married Sarah Tribbey. They had one child but she and it died shortly after it was born. He moved to Adams County, Ohio, in 1802. He represented Adams County in the first Legislature of the new state which sat at Chillicothe, Ohio, March 1, to April 16, 1803. Thomas Kirker and Joseph Lucas were his colleagues. He was the first clerk of the courts of Scioto County, having been appointed December, 1803. It seems that the office did not suit his tastes and he resigned in June, 1804. In the eighth legislative session, December 4, 1809, to February 22, 1810, he was a member from Adams County at the munificent salary of two dollars per day. He had Dr. Alexander Campbell afterward United States senator as a colleague. On the fifteenth day of February, 1810, he was appointed an associate judge for Scioto County, Ohio. This office did not suit his tastes and he resigned it in 1812.
At the tenth legislative session, December 10, 1811, to February 21, 1812, he was a member of the house from Adams County, with John Ellison as a colleague. This legislature sat at Zanesville, Ohio. The house impeached John Thompson, a president judge of the common pleas, but on trial in the senate, he was acquitted. At this session, Columbus was made the capital of the state, and the legislature provided for the military equipment of the Ohio militia. It also incorporated a number of libraries in the state. At the eleventh legislative session, December 7. 1812, to February 9, 1813, William Russell was a member from Adams County with John Ellison as a colleague. This legislature provided for the care and maintenance of women who had been abandoned by their husbands, (an epidemic in those days,) and made the property of the absconder liable for the wife's maintenance. Strong measures were adopted to require every able bodied man to respond to the call to arms, but the legislature, by special resolution, excused Jacob Wooding, of Scioto County, Ohio, from military duty, because his father was blind, lame, absolutely helpless and had two blind children. No one else was excused From 1813 to 1819, he dropped out of the legislature, but not out of public employment.
At the eighteenth legislative session from December 5 1819, to February 26, 1820, he was a member of the senate from Adams County. The House amused itself by impeaching two judges on the ground of deciding an election contest contrary to the evidence, but the senate unamimously acquitted them. The senate spent a great deal of time in discussing the Missouri Compromise and the question of slavery.
At the nineteenth legislative session, December 4, 1820, to February 23, 1821, William Russell again represented Adams County in the senate. The question of a canal system occupied much attention; also that of attacking branches of the United States Bank. This legislature placed the United States Bank without Ohio's laws and forbade the officers of the courts to recognize it in any way. Justices and judges were forbidden to entertain any case for it; sheriffs to arrest any one at its instance, or notaries to protest notes for it, or take any acknowledgment for it. Justices and judges were to be fined $500 if they entertained a suit for it, and sheriffs $200 for putting any one in jail at its instance. From this time, 1821 to 1829, William Russell was out of public employment. In the fall of 1826, he was elected to congress as a Democrat, and re-elected for two succeeding terms. During all of this time he was a resident of Adams County and a merchant at West Union. After his third term in congress expired, March 4, 1833 he removed Rushtown, Ohio, in Scioto County and engaged in forging bar iron. In this enterprise, he was unsuccessful and is said to have lost $30,000. He was elected to the twenty-seventh congress in 1841 as a Whig and served one term. At the end of his first term, March 4, 1843, he re turned to his farm on Scioto Brush Creek, where he continued to reside until his death, September 28, 1845, at the age of 63. When at Portsmouth in 1803, he was a Presbyterian but returning to West Union, he became a Methodist. In 1809 to 1820, he was one of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church in West Union, Ohio, and aided in the erection of the first church there, and all his life after, he was a faithful, devoted and devout Methodist. He was a student and self educated. He was a fluent and pleasant speaker and had extensive conversational powers. He was liked and respected by all who knew him. He had a remarkable popularity, largely owing to his even temper. As a merchant, he was strict and honorable in all his dealings, and maintained the highest credit. His public career began at the age of twenty one, when elected to the first legislature of Ohio. He was legislator, clerk of court, state senator and congressman and filled each and every office with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. In private life, he was a successful merchant, an honored member of the Methodist Church and an upright citizen. In this case, the office sought the man. How many men have crowded into the space of forty years so many activities? Comparing him with the men of his time, we find he held office in two counties, and all he lacked was that he was not made a militia general. Every legislator of prominence, under the constitution of 1802, was either made an associate judge or a major general of militia. William Russell obtained the judgeship but missed the generalship. However, his career in congress gave him more distinction than the military title could have done.
In 1808, he married Nancy Wood and had seven children, six sons and a daughter. One of the sons lived near Rushtown during his life. Another, William B., married Rebecca Lucas and became the father of six chidren, three sons and three daughters. A grandson, James Russell, resides near Lucasville, Ohio, and another, George Russell, in Portsmouth, Ohio.
From "History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time" - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900