History of Wells River, (Orange County) Vermont United States of America

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William Augustus Russell, representative, was born at Wells River, Vt., April 22, 1831; son of William and Almira (Heath) Russell, and a descendant of English ancestry. He removed with his parents at an early age to Franklin, N.H., where be attended the academy; worked in Peabody & Daniels' paper mill during vacation until 1847; attended a private school in Lowell, Mass., 1847?48; worked in his father's paper mill at Franklin, N.H., 1848?51, becoming a partner in 1850, and removed the mills to Lawrence, Mass., assuming entire control of the business, which he extended by leasing two mills in Belfast, Me., in 1856; purchasing another mill at Lawrence in 1861, and establishing in 1869 a wood-pulp mill, the first of its kind, in Franklin, N.H. He purchased the Fisher and Aiken paper mills in Franklin in 1879, and located large mills at Bellows Falls, Vt., purchasing the entire water power and building a dam. He extended his interests in paper mills to other points in Maine and to St. Anthony's Falls, Minn., and on the organization of the International Paper company in 1897 became a director and president of the company, resigning in November, 1898, on account of failing health. He was a Republican alderman of Lawrence, Mass., in 1867; a representative in the state legislature in 1868; a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1868 and 1876, and a Republican representative from the seventh Massachusetts district in the 46th and 47th congresses, 1879?83, and from the eighth district in the 48th congress, 1883?85, declining re-election in 1884, and serving in the 46th congress on the committee on commerce and on a sub-committee to investigate the decline of American commerce, his report resulting in a change of the state laws in relation to the taxation of property in ships, and on the committee on ways and means in the 47th and 48th congresses as a protectionist. He was married, first, Feb. 1, 1859, to Elizabeth Haven, daughter of William A. Hall of Bradford. She died, Dec. 18, 1866, leaving three daughters; and he was married, secondly, June 25, 1872, to his first wife's sister, Frances Spafford Hall, by whom he had two sons, William A., Jr., and Richard Spafford, and one daughter, Elizabeth H. Mr. Russell made his winter home in Boston, Mass., from 1885, and died there, Jan. 10, 1899.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Wells River, (Orange County) Vermont

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