Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 525] an engineer on the W. N. Y. & P. R. R., residing at New Castle, Pa., was born in Glasgow, Scotland, Aug. 12, 1854, and is a son of John and Annie (Bain) Russell. Annie (Bain) Russell was born in Glasgow, and was a daughter of James and Christiana (Graham) Bain, the latter a native of Perthshire; James Bain was a native of Glasgow, where he was employed as teamster for the cotton mills, and lived to be eighty-two years of age, dying in his native land. Our subject's father was born in Dunbarton, Scotland, in 1822, and died Dec. 6, 1895, in the United States; he was a son of John Russell, Sr., an architect and builder in Scotland, where he died. John Russell, Jr., came to America in the spring of 1856, when our subject was an infant, and after living nine years in Canada came to the States, and followed teaming, in which business he was very successful, and operated on a large scale.
Robert Russell was in his second year when his parents came to America, and he lived eight or nine years in Newborough, where he attended school. When the family came to New Castle, he attended school there until he reached the age of fifteen years, when he began to do for himself, working in the bolt factory for eleven consecutive years, and then in the paper mill for one year. He began firing Nov. 10, 1883, for the W. N. Y. & P. R. R., and remained in that station some three years, when, having proved himself a steady, competent employee, he was advanced to the position of engineer, and has since attended exclusively to the duties of an engineer.
He was married in New Castle, Oct. 30, 1882, to Deborah Sankey, daughter of William P. and Harriet (Nowland) Sankey; an extended account of the Sankey family will be found on another page of this Book of Biographies. Seven children have blessed our subject's marriage, as follows: Howard; James; William; Harry; Hattie; Maude; and Robert, Jr. Mr. Russell is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and his, wife attends the M. E. Church. In his political attachments, Mr. Russell is a Republican. He is a member of Oil City Division, No. 173, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and to New Castle Lodge, No. 404, Knights of Pythias.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
Previous Biography | Table of Contents | Next Biography
Explanation/Caution | Lawrence Co. Maps | Lawrence Co. Histories
Updated: 13 Jul 2001