Martin Thomas Russell, 1820-1910

 Family history post:

116 years ago last week, one of my 3rd Great GrandUncle’s passed away.  Martin Thomas Russell was born in May of 1820, in Boyle or Lincoln County, Kentucky… and was one of nine known children born to Edmund and Malinda (Rousey) Russell.  One of his younger sisters is my 3rd Great Grandmother.

In April of 1847, Martin married Elizabeth Jane Benedict in Lincoln County, KY.  They were farmers in the 1850 census, but by 1860, they were operating the Hustonville Hotel.  In 1860, their real estate value was $5,000… with a personal estate value of $2,000.  In 1870, the real estate value had gone up to $8,000… and personal estate value was up to $3,525.

In 1852, there’s a mention in the Interior Journal newspaper in Lincoln County, stating that Martin had stabbed a man.  It says that it was thought the man wouldn’t recover… and that all reports agreed that Martin was unjustified.  I was unable to find any follow up on the event.

There’s an ad in 1872, for the Hustonville Hotel being available for sale or rent, and then a notice that it was sold in 1873.  After that, it seems that Martin became a man of many trades, trying his hand at lots of different things, trying to provide for his family.  He was a beekeeper, a salesman for farm plows and pumps, a horse breeder, and made his own whiskey.  This was likely all due to his debts from previous years.  At the end of 1874, there was an ad for a public sale of “15 barrels of spirits” located at the distillery warehouse… due to unpaid taxes and penalties.  Then in 1878, it was printed in the newspaper that his debts had been wiped out by the “Bankrupt Law”, but Martin was such an honest man, he paid his debts anyway.

1873 beekeeper

1873 salesman

1874 public sale

1878 An Honest Man

1880 horse Waterloo

In 1885, he was hurt by a “vicious Jersey bull”.  He’s quoted to say, he had “fought my way all over the United States and was never whipped before.”  

1885 injured by bull

Apparently, Martin was quite the collector of things.  In 1897, an article was published about all the things he had collected over the years.  Some of the things he says he had were…

• Deer skins from soldiers who had camped nearby during the Civil War

• An ancient Poland Angus hide

• A mill stone used at Stanford’s Mill in the 1810’s

• A wagon owned by a Tom Baker, that was used to haul produce to merchants in Louisville

• Carpenter tools from the 1840’s

• A petrified hornet’s nest from the 1820’s

• A looking glass from 1850

• A gold toothpick from the 1840’s

• A brass kettle from 1792

• Shoemaker tools from 1817

• A grease lamp from the 1770’s

Then there are things that he was in possession of that were family items…

• His father’s coat buttons from the 1850’s

• His father’s clock from the 1800’s

• A quilt made by his mother in 1822

• His grandfather’s dog irons (a fireplace tool) from 1815

• A family plate from 1782

• His grandfather Absolom Russell’s gun from the Revolutionary War

 

And while I wish I could snuggle up in a quilt my 4th Great Grandmother had made 200 years ago… the main item of interest on his list… is Daniel Boone’s gun that he (Boone) started to Kentucky with in May of 1769.  He states that he had purchased it in 1847, from a William Wrecks (not sure if the writer got the spelling of the surname correct).  Martin describes the barrel of the gun as being 4 feet 1 inch long, and with the length of the stock added, it was “as tall as Harvey Helm or French Tipton.”  I looked these men up… Helm was a KY State Rep from 1894-96, and Tipton was a lawyer and editor, who had kept track of local history at that time.  Martin is quoted to say that he “has tried to miss targets and game with it, but couldn’t.”  Now… was that really Boone’s gun from the first trip into Kentucky?  Was it really Boone’s gun at all?  Who knows.  But it’s a neat story.  My only other question is… WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THAT STUFF???  

A year after that article ran, I found Martin in the newspaper again… they thought he had found a penguin.  It was a “very peculiar bird, killed in the reservoir near his place by John Dishon, that comes nearer the description of a penguin than anything we can find.”  The bird reportedly weighed 18 pounds and was “beautifully marked with white specks on black.”  Wonder what it was?

1898 a penguin?

In 1906 he was in the paper again… this time, someone had broken into his house.  The burglar had stolen copper and sold it.

circa 1901, Martin and some family members

Martin Thomas Russell passed away on January 20, 1910, at his home in Milledgeville KY.  He is buried in the Hustonville Cemetery, in Lincoln County KY.  From all of the above info about this man… he must have been a real character to know!

1910 obituary