John Russell was born near Derry, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1830. His father, also named John Russell, was a farmer and settled in Tyler County, Virginia (now West Virginia). At 16, Russell left for Wheeling, where he clerked at a hardware store for five years.^[1]

In 1850, he moved to Kentucky to serve as a bookkeeper for the Amanda Furnace in Greenup County for $400 a year. After two years, he was given a quarter interest in the concern and his salary increased to $1000 a year. Upon the 1855 death of the senior partner, Archibald Paull of Wheeling, he bought an eighth interest in the Belle Fonta Furnace and formed a partnership with its owners, Thomas and Hugh Means. As president of the Means and Russell Iron Company,^[1] he purchased the land of the former Amanda Furnace and, in 1869, platted out a new city named "Riverview" along the expected route of a new Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad spur between Huntington, West Virginia, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

This town was renamed "Russell" in his honor in 1873.^[2] He subsequently served as president of the Catlettsburg National Bank, the Means & Russell Iron Co. in Russell, the St. Clair Coke Works (in Fayette County, West Virginia), and the Norton Iron Works in Ashland.^[1]

John Russell married Anna Mead in 1856 and sired five children: Mollie, Helen Virginia, John III, Emma Clancy, and Charles.^[1]

History

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