Thomas Russell was born on 16 October 1727 in Guilford, Connecticut, the son of Rev. Samuel and Dorothy (Smithson) Russell. The Rev. Russell died in 1746 during Thomas’s freshman year at Yale College while still in his minority. In his will, the Rev. Russell left two-thirds of his real estate to his eldest son Samuel Jr. and one-third to Thomas, including his share in the library at Lyme and Saybrook.

After his graduation in 1749, Thomas studied theology, following the calling of his three previous generations, and was recommended in 1755 by a committee of the Hartford South Association of Ministers as a candidate for pastor at Haddam, Connecticut. He either did not receive or did not accept the position and turned to a vocation in medicine, becoming a physician in Cornwall, Connecticut. He appears to have served in that capacity during the French and Indian War in 1757 when “Seventeen [men from Cornwall] Rode in Lyman’s Company, Marsh’s Regiment, whose names are given, including Ethan Allen, Jonathan Chandler (killed at Bennington), Sergeant Wright, Thomas Russell, the doctor, and Woodruff Edmonds, the innkeeper.”¹

On 7 October 1760, he married Mary Patterson, the daughter of Captain John and Mary (Curtis) Patterson.² She was born on 10 January 1742/1743 in Stratford, Connecticut. Their known children were:⁹

• Thomas was born on 27 November 1761 and married Mary Spafford.
• Lucretia was born on 16 June 1763.
• Mary “Polly” was baptized on 27 January 1765.
• Samuel Smithson was born on 21 December 1766.
• Cynthia was born on 14 March 1769.
• Esther Steele was born on 23 July 1771 and married Lemuel Wellman.
• Infant, unnamed, was born in about 1775 and died young.
• John Hancock was born on 22 November 1777 and married Anna Wood.
• Electa was born on 27 August 1785 and died young.

In 1761, Dr. Russell was one of the first two representatives of Cornwall and served in that capacity until 1774, being elected eighteen times. He served as Justice of the Peace in 1762 and for years afterward. In that position, he fined the town pastor, Rev. Hezekiah Gold, for assaulting his employee, causing a rift in the town that ultimately led to many relocating, including Dr. Russell, to Vermont and New Hampshire.³

Regarding Dr. Russell’s patriotic service during the American Revolution, in 1776, he served as the surgeon in Colonel Heman Swift’s Connecticut Regiment. Swift was also a resident of Cornwall, which was on duty in the Northern Department during the latter half of 1776. According to Yale and Her Honor Roll in the American Revolution, Dr. Russell was at Ticonderoga during the events of 1776-1777.⁴ The Daughters of the American Revolution, Lineage Book, volume 17, documents that Dr. Russell “marched from Wethersfield, Connecticut, at the Lexington Alarm and served in Captain Squire Hill’s company at the Siege of Boston. He was at White Plains under Captain Philip Putnam and reinforced the garrison at Ticonderoga, 1777, in Colonel Benjamin Bellow’s regiment of New Hampshire militia.”⁵ However, this information is unconfirmed by any other source and may be confused with the service of other patriots of the same name.⁶ His service as a surgeon in Colonel Swift’s regiment is detailed in correspondence from Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut.

Dr. Russell relocated his family, likely in the spring of 1777 after selling his farm in Cornwall, to Piermont, New Hampshire, where his father-in-law, John Patterson had previously located. According to Horton in Piermont, New Hampshire, Dr. Russell “came here from Connecticut by horseback, his daughter Esther [about five or six years of age] riding behind him on the same horse, as was the custom at that time.” Wellman in Descendants of Thomas Wellman further described this journey: “On horseback with their families they followed the Connecticut River [200 miles] to Piermont, New Hampshire, and there settled living in log houses until they could build frame houses.”⁷

Dr. Thomas Russell’s civil service during the American Revolution was not only as a Justice of the Peace at the beginning of the war, 1775-1776, but continued in Piermont. By 1780, Dr. Russell was serving as a selectman in his new town of residence. In that capacity, he responded, along with his fellow selectmen, to a call for recruits for the Continental Army.

Several years later, Dr. Russell represented Piermont as the Town Agent in a petition regarding taxes.

Dr. Thomas Russell died on 2 March 1801 at Piermont.⁸ His widow joined him in death two decades later on 7 December 1822. They are interred at River Road Cemetery at Piermont, Grafton County, New Hampshire.

Sources:

1. Starr, A History of Cornwall, 47. This summation most likely came from Bates, Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 1755-1762, 247, which states, “Colony of Connecticut to Capt. Moses Lyman and the Company under his Command In Colonel Eben Marsh Regment for ye Service at ye time of alarm for ye Relief of fort Wm Henry and Places…. Twenty-four of the above-named rode horses from Goshen, one from Litchfield, four from Canaan, three from Sharon, twenty-five from Salisbury, and seventeen from Cornwall.” Included in the roster is Thomas Russel, with 6 days in service annotated. There is no mention on the roster that he was a doctor or serving in that capacity.
2. Ancestry.com, Early Connecticut Marriages, Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
3. Starr, A History of Cornwall, 357.
4. Johnston, Yale and Her Honor-Roll in the American Revolution, 39 & 200.
5. Dolliver, Lineage Book NSDAR, 137. This detail is listed under Miss Lillie D’Angelo Bergh, DAR Member #16368. Similar information is listed for Miss Florence Russell Wright DAR Member #14881: “served at the siege of Boston in Capt. Squire Hill’s company. He was at White Plains and Ticonderoga.”
6. Johnston, Connecticut Military Record 1775-1848, 25 & 545. Page 25 shows a list of men from the town of Wethersfield who answered the Lexington Alarm and includes a Thomas Russell, in the service for six days. Dr. Thomas Russell was at that time a Justice of the Peace in Cornwall. Page 545 shows the roster for Capt. Squire Hill’s Company, Col. Samuel McClellan’s Regiment, “engaged till the 1st of March, 1779.” The roster includes Private Thomas Russel, who arrived in camp on 1 July 1778. It is doubtful that either man was Dr. Thomas Russell of Cornwall, particularly the latter, since Dr. Russell evidently moved with his family to Piermont, N. H., in the spring of 1777.
7. Horton, Piermont, New Hampshire, 1764 – 1974, 108 & 159; Wellman, Descendants of Thomas Wellman, 193.
8. There is some discrepancy regarding the year that Dr. Russell died. The Hanover, N. H., Dartmouth Gazette recorded on 7 Mar. 1801, “Died, at Piermont, on Monday last, Doctor Thomas Russell, aged 73, for many years an eminent physician in that town.” John L. Russell in his letter to President Pierce, provided at the end of this essay, stated that his grandfather died in 1800, while the engraving on Dr. Thomas Russell’s gravestone reads 1803. Note that the engraving on his headstone begins with “In memory of,” which may indicate that it does not mark his grave or was placed there perhaps years after his death. Also, his full date of birth is engraved, but only the year of death, which could also indicate that the actual date of death was unknown when engraved. Other newspapers that also ran the death announcement in March 1801 included the Concord Courier of New Hampshire, Boston Columbian Centinel, Newport Herald and Country Gazette, and Brookfield Political Repository. Based on the various death announcements published in March 1801, I have recorded 1801 as his year of death. 
9. Starr, A History of Cornwall, 503; Ancestry.com, Connecticut, Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), 388, image 104 of 128.

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