Jesse Gus Russell

1803-1879

 

Jesse Gus Russell was born in 1803 in Madison, Somerset, Maine. All of his siblings were born, lived and died in Maine. He married Lovina Wymore in 1820. He was 17 years old and she was 14 years old.

 

This is the same year that Maine became the 23rd state.

 

Jesse and Lovina had eleven children (five sons and six daughters). Lovina died in 1848, when her youngest child, Jesse Jr, was three years old. She died of consumption. The medical recorder of deaths for that year stated. “The most prevalent disease in this district is consumption. The most probable cause is the severity of the climate.” There was another child named Lovina of four years old that was listed who died the next month of cholera in the same district. It is not known if she is a daughter of Jesse & Lovina.

 

Jesse & Lovina’s oldest daughter, Diantha and Alden, had already married. Augustus was 15 years old about this time. He went to live with his sister, Diantha for two or three years before striking it out on his own to California, and then later went to Oregon. Charles, Augustus’ brother was one year older. They were very close for years.

 

In 1850, Jesse married Eliza Whittier, with which he had another daughter, Elmira. When Elmira was 19 years old, she worked at a factory.

 

Jesse lived to be 76 years old and died Feb 12, 1879 in Brighton. His wife, Eliza, went to live with Elmira and her husband, then died a few years later in 1884.

 

Jesse’s son, Alden became a farmer, and a member of the state milita.