--- aliases: - Russell and Company - Russell & Company - Russell & Co. - Russell and Co. - Russell & Co., Canton - Russell & Co., Guangzhou - Samuel Russell & Co. - Kee-Chang-Hong category: Private Organization created: 2026-10-26 end: 1891 location: Canton, China relations: - fn: 3 reverse: true role: founder; the Library of Congress dates the Canton house to 1819 start: 1824-01-01 type: founded with: '[[Samuel Russell]]' - end: 1830-06-30 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner start: 1824-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Philip Ammidon]]' - end: 1833-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner; left Canton in ill health and died at the Cape of Good Hope start: 1829-09-01 type: employed_by with: '[[William H. Low]]' - end: 1836-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner start: 1830-11-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Augustine Heard]]' - end: 1836-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner; special agent at Canton for N. L. and G. Griswold of New York start: 1834-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[John Cleve Green]]' - end: 1838-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner start: 1834-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[John Murray Forbes]]' - end: 1839-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner start: 1834-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Joseph Coolidge]]' - end: 1840-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner; nephew of William H. Low start: 1837-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Abiel Abbot Low]]' - end: 1840-07-07 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner; chief of the house until his departure for New York start: 1839-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Robert Bennet Forbes]]' - fn: 7 reverse: true role: partner; succeeded Robert Bennet Forbes as chief of the house start: 1840-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Warren Delano Jr.]]' - end: 1843-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner start: 1842-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Russell Sturgis]]' - end: 1842-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner; author of The Fan Kwae at Canton (1882) start: 1837-01-01 type: employed_by with: '[[W. C. Hunter]]' - end: 1842-12-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: partner start: 1837-07-01 type: employed_by with: '[[Edward King]]' - fn: 15 role: agent for the Canton merchant's foreign business, secured to the house in 1830 start: 1829-08-01 type: represented with: '[[Houqua]]' - end: 1842-08-29 fn: 29 role: partners at Canton signed the May 25, 1839 memorial to Congress after the opium surrender start: 1839-03-22 type: participant_in with: '[[Opium War]]' start: 1824-01-01 summary: American commission house at Canton that Samuel Russell founded, which absorbed the Boston firm Perkins and Company in 1831, handled Turkish and Indian opium, and failed in 1891. tags: - Organization - TradingHouse - ChinaTrade - OpiumTrade - Canton - Boston - Delano - Forbes - Perkins - 1820s - 1830s - 1840s - 1890s - Bankruptcy title: Russell and Company updated: 2026-10-26 --- Russell and Company was an American commission house at Canton, [China](/places/china/), formed by Samuel Russell of Middletown, Connecticut. W. C. Hunter, a partner of the house, wrote that it "confined itself strictly to agency business."[^1] The Baker Library at Harvard Business School describes it as "the largest American commission house in China" until its demise in 1891.[^2] Its Canton correspondence includes the Turkish opium trade, and from 1830 the house kept the ship Lintin at anchor as its receiving ship in the opium anchorage off Canton.[^3][^4] ### Founding and partners The Library of Congress finding aid for the firm's papers describes it as a "Trading house founded in 1819 by Samuel Russell" in Canton.[^3] Hunter, a partner from 1837 to 1842 whose 1882 book describes the Canton factories, dates the house to January 1, 1824, as the successor of Samuel Russell & Co., which he says existed from December 26, 1818 to December 26, 1823, and records that the Chinese knew the house as Kee-Chang-Hong.[^1] The National Historic Landmark nomination for Russell's Middletown house, prepared by the National Park Service, places his arrival in Canton in 1819 under arrangements made by Edward Carrington and Providence merchants, and dates the commission house in partnership with Philip Ammidon to 1824.[^5] It adds that the first Canton venture returned about $15,000 to each of five partners in 1823.[^5] From January 1, 1824, until the middle of 1830 the sole partners were Russell and Ammidon.[^1] In September 1829 William H. Low arrived from Salem, Massachusetts, and in November 1830 Augustine Heard arrived from Boston in the bark Lintin under Captain R. B. Forbes. Both became partners. Low left Canton in ill health in 1833 and died at the Cape of Good Hope. Hunter lists the 1834 to 1836 admissions as John Cleve Green, special agent at Canton for N. L. and G. Griswold of [New York](/places/new-york/), John Murray Forbes, who had arrived in the Lintin in 1830 to join the office, and Joseph Coolidge, who arrived in 1832. Heard retired in the same term.[^1] The nomination states that Ammidon, unable to return to Canton, was terminated from the partnership after Low and Russell accepted Heard on a recommendation in 1830.[^5] In 1837 Abiel Abbot Low, a nephew of William H. Low, and Hunter were admitted, and Edward King became a partner in July of that year. Robert Bennet Forbes, the elder brother of John Murray Forbes, arrived in the Bashaw in October 1838 and was admitted on January 1, 1839, becoming chief of the house.[^1] Hunter gives his departure for New York in the Niantic on July 7, 1840.[^1] The Forbes brothers were nephews of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, who headed the Boston house of J. and T. H. Perkins, and Robert Bennet Forbes's plans for the Lintin station in 1829 and 1830 ran through arrangements with the Perkins family and the Bryant and Sturgis house.[^6] Warren Delano Jr. joined in the term beginning in 1840 and succeeded Forbes as chief. Hunter describes him as formerly of the house of Russell, Sturgis and Company of Canton and Manila.[^1] The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library catalogues him as Warren Delano II (1809 to 1898), the maternal grandfather of [Franklin D. Roosevelt](/people/franklin-d-roosevelt/), and dates his partnership to January 1840.[^7] Russell Sturgis became a partner on January 1, 1842.[^1] Forbes's own memoir gives his partnership in Russell and Company as running from January 1, 1840 to January 1, 1844, and again from January 1, 1849 to January 1, 1857, and says that he held the vice-consulate while in China on his last visit.[^8] Hunter's list has him admitted in 1839 and leaving for New York in July 1840.[^1] ### Samuel Russell of Middletown The nomination gives Samuel Wadsworth Russell's dates as 1789 to 1862 and his ancestry as a line from William Russell (1612 to 1664), a founder of the Saybrook and New Haven colonies, through the Rev. Noadiah Russell (1659 to 1713), second pastor of the Congregational church at Middletown from 1698 and one of the founders of [Yale University](/organizations/yale-university/), and his eldest son the Rev. William Russell (born 1690). It names his grandfather as Captain Samuel Russell (born 1727) and his father as Captain John Russell (1765 to 1801), who died insolvent.[^5] His middle name came from a great uncle, Jeremiah Wadsworth of Hartford, Commissary General of the Continental Army, who had married the Rev. William Russell's daughter Mehitable.[^5] The nomination records that Russell was twelve when his father died, that he was an apprentice clerk to the Middletown merchants Whittlesley and Alsop, and that after a voyage that ended in 1813 he acted as Middletown commission merchant for Hull and Griswold, and that the first Russell and Company was founded in a building he had leased there.[^5] The nomination dates his withdrawal from the Canton house to 1836, with his profits reinvested in industry, banking and western railroad stock, and gives his estate at death in 1862 as $630,000, left to his widow and his sole surviving son, Samuel Wadsworth Russell Jr.[^5] Hunter records that Russell and John Perkins Cushing took their final leave of Canton in the Bashaw on February 27, 1831; the nomination says both returned to America upon completing their work in March 1831.[^5][^9] The house at Middletown, designed by Ithiel Town in 1827 to 1830, passed to Wesleyan University in 1937 by the gift of his great-grandson Thomas MacDonough Russell Jr.[^5] The Yale biographical sketches record that the Rev. William Russell of Middletown (Yale tutor, minister 1715 to 1761), the eldest child of the Rev. Noadiah Russell and Mary Hamlin, married Mary Pierpont in 1719 and had four sons and five daughters, of whom the Rev. William Russell (Yale 1745) and the Rev. Noadiah Russell (Yale 1750) and one other son survived him.[^10] Matthew Talcott Russell was the second son of that Noadiah Russell of Thompson, Connecticut, born March 19, 1761, a lawyer at Middletown, and the father of [William Huntington Russell](/people/william-huntington-russell/), a co-founder of the [Skull and Bones](/organizations/skull-and-bones/) society, who was graduated from Yale in 1833.[^11][^12] The nomination says that Wadsworth had been apprenticed to his uncle Matthew Talcott of Middletown, and the Yale sketch records that Matthew Talcott Russell was named for Colonel Matthew Talcott of Middletown, who had married his aunt and paid for his education.[^5][^11] The sketch of the Rev. William Russell gives the Rev. Noadiah Russell (Yale 1750) as his son and the father of Matthew Talcott Russell; the nomination gives the Rev. William Russell's daughter Mehitable as the wife of Jeremiah Wadsworth, Samuel Russell's great uncle, and names Samuel Russell's grandfather as Captain Samuel Russell (born 1727).[^5][^10][^11] The Hamlin family genealogy of 1900 records Samuel Russell, born at Middletown on August 25, 1789, as the son of Capt. John Russell (born August 19, 1765, died December 7, 1801), who was the son of Capt. Samuel Russell (born July 7, 1727), a brother of the Rev. Noadiah Russell (Yale 1750). John Russell and Matthew Talcott Russell were first cousins, and Samuel Russell and William Huntington Russell were second cousins, with William Russell, the son of the Yale founder Noadiah Russell, as their common great-grandfather.[^13] Kris Millegan calls William Huntington Russell Samuel Russell's cousin in his opening article and at pages 151 to 152, his second cousin at page 313, and, at page 52, calls Samuel Russell his uncle.[^14] ### The 1831 merger with Perkins and Company The Library of Congress finding aid states that in 1831 the China trading operations of John P. Cushing, William Perkins and Company of Boston, and Houqua, the Canton merchant, merged with Russell and Company.[^3] The Baker Library guide to the firm's records gives the same event from the Boston side: Cushing, who had been the sole agent in Canton for Perkins and Company, arranged to dissolve the Boston house by merging its Canton business into Russell and Company in 1831.[^2] Hunter's account is dated by deaths. Thomas T. Forbes, who had succeeded Cushing at Perkins and Company in 1828, drowned in a typhoon on August 9, 1829, with S. H. Monson, the bookkeeper of Russell and Company. Among Forbes's papers was a sealed letter to Russell and Company asking them, in case of accident, to take charge of the local business of his own firm and of J. and T. H. Perkins. They did so, "and naturally came with it that of Houqua, who had been the intimate personal friend of Mr. Cushing during his unbroken residence of over twenty years in Canton."[^15] Cushing, who was in England when the news arrived, returned to Canton in the Bashaw in August 1830, and arrangements "were then definitely concluded by which Russell & Co. were officially appointed sole agents for the Boston house, that of Perkins & Co. being wound up, while the important foreign business of Houqua was then also definitely secured to them."[^15] The nomination describes the reorganization as one directed by Cushing: Heard was made the representative of Perkins and their associated Boston firms, Robert Bennet Forbes was given charge of the Lintin station storeship business, and John Murray Forbes was placed with the firm as an assistant in line for partnership.[^5] The editor of John Murray Forbes's letters adds that Cushing, returning from Europe, went overland to Canton to look after the Perkins business and merged it into Russell and Company before the arrival in China of Forbes's father and uncle.[^16] The Baker Library holds the Perkins and Company letter books from Canton that precede the merger, and the Library of Congress finding aid says that more Russell and Company business records are in the William Perkins and Company records at Baker Library.[^2][^3] ### Turkish opium and the Indian trade The Library of Congress finding aid says that the correspondence after 1818 contains much information on the daily operation of the Canton company and on the Turkish opium trade, along with the Amsterdam commodity exchanges.[^3] Its subject index includes an entry for the opium trade with Turkey, and among the firms represented in the correspondence it lists Clarke and Company, of Smyrna, [Turkey](/places/turkey/).[^3] The box list includes account books for 1816 to 1829 that carry a manuscript on the Chinese method of preparing opium for smoking.[^17] The nomination's account of the trade is longer. It states that Americans, largely excluded from the Indian and Persian markets, were for a time restricted to Turkish opium transshipped through American ports, that the Perkins brothers of Boston had been associated with the Turkish opium trade since the 1780s and organized a Smyrna merchant house in 1816, and that there is no evidence that Russell took part in the opium trade during his first Canton venture.[^5] It states that by the time Ammidon left, his dealings "had made Russell & Company one of the most important American sellers of the opium in Canton, second or third in the trade behind the British firms of Jardine Matheson & Company and Dent & Company," that during the first Opium War the firm "managed to hold its position in the Turkish trade and became the third largest purveyor of the drug from India," and that by 1842 it was the largest and strongest American house in China.[^5] Robert Bennet Forbes's memoir describes a 1828 voyage to Smyrna in the Danube, a vessel fitted out at New York by Sturgis and Perkins. He states the object plainly: "the principal object being to procure Turkey opium for China."[^18] He carried a credit on the Baring Brothers of about £60,000 and a cargo of coffee and specie. At Smyrna the principal American merchant was Joseph Langdon. Forbes says that he sailed from Vourla under the convoy of the United States schooner Porpoise through the Archipelago and then went on to Gibraltar to await operations on a larger scale.[^19] On the way up the Mediterranean he met the brig Leander, of Salem, bound home from Smyrna, and he suspected from her that her owner, Joseph Peabody, who held an interest in the China and [India](/places/india/) trade, had been on the same errand.[^19] The Indian side of the trade ran through the store-ships anchored at Lintin. Forbes writes that the store-ships lay outside at Lintin and that the drug was run up the river in small boats, sometimes carried by the mandarin boats sent to protect the revenue.[^20] He gives the annual value of the trade as ten or twelve million dollars and says that the officials encouraged its introduction "from India and Turkey, not only by levying a duty on it for their own benefit, but by consuming it."[^20] Hunter says the Lintin was Russell and Company's "receiving ship" from 1830, and that she held her anchorage for nine years.[^4] Robert Bennet Forbes sought the command of the Lintin station ship in 1829 and 1830. The station ship was then the Tartar of Bryant and Sturgis, commanded by a relative of Mr. Sturgis.[^6] Forbes wrote that from January 1 to the closing of the port the commission account and the gains of the Lintin "showed a grand result."[^21] ### The 1839 surrender at Canton In March 1839 the imperial commissioner Lin Zexu demanded the opium held by the foreign community at Canton. The Chinese Repository, published at Canton, printed the sequence. On March 21 the General Chamber of Commerce, whose chairman was William S. Wetmore, resolved in a letter to the Hong merchants that there was "an almost unanimous feeling in the community of the absolute necessity of the foreign residents of Canton having no connexion with the opium traffic," and that night the Hong merchants reported that Lin would be at the Consoo house at ten the next morning unless opium was delivered.[^22] An edict of April 1 addressed the chairman of the Chamber and called on the American consul to surrender a quantity of opium not less than the British superintendent had given up.[^22] A later edict from Lin recorded that the American consul P. W. Snow had declared that "the merchants of his country, acting in obedience to the new regulations, will not presume to traffic in opium," and objected that Snow's added remark about ordering offending ships home did not accord with conforming to the law.[^23] Charles Elliot, the British superintendent of trade, notified Lin on March 28, 1839 that he held himself responsible for delivering 20,283 chests of opium owned by British subjects, and that as the chests came into his possession each would be delivered up.[^24] Forbes's memoir records that Elliot called on British subjects and on all who held British-owned opium to surrender it in the name of Queen Victoria, and that schedules were made chest by chest for delivery to Lin's officers.[^25] Hunter gives the count: by May 2, 15,501 chests had been handed over, and the whole quantity, 20,283 chests, was completed on May 21.[^26] Hunter wrote that the Americans had not delivered any American-owned opium, "of which we held at the time of surrender about fifty cases of Turkey."[^27] He adds: "The English on leaving placed theirs in charge of the American houses. A large share of it fell under the control of Russell & Co."[^27] He describes a discussion among the Canton agents about charging half-commissions on consignments withdrawn from the trade, and says the charge was dropped on the quantity Russell and Company delivered up, which he gives as nearly 15,000 dollars.[^28] Forbes wrote that the American hong housed the United States consul, P. W. Snow, together with Russell and Company and Russell, Sturgis and Company, and that the foreign community was kept under strict guard while the delivery went on.[^25] ### The memorial of the American merchants A memorial dated at Canton on May 25, 1839 was printed by the United States House of Representatives as House Document 40 of the 26th Congress, first session, dated January 9, 1840 and referred to the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The caption describes it as the memorial of R. B. Forbes and others, American merchants at Canton, for a commercial agent to be sent to China to negotiate a commercial treaty, with a naval force to protect the persons and property of Americans. It is signed by Russell Sturgis, W. Delano Jr., Gideon Nye Jr., R. B. Forbes, A. A. Low, Edward King, S. B. Rawle, and Jas. Ryan.[^29] The memorial states that the signers were "made prisoners in our factories" on March 22, that the commissioner had obtained "upwards of twenty thousand chests of British owned opium," valued at more than ten million dollars, and that the signers had been threatened over a bond under which a ship found bringing opium would be given up for punishment by death.[^29] It gives the opium sales at Canton by season: 3,210 chests for $3,657,000 in 1816 to 1817, 5,822 chests in 1822 to 1823, 9,535 chests in 1827 to 1828, and 23,670 chests for $15,332,759 in 1832 to 1833. It states that the receiving vessels moved from Whampoa to Lintin about 1821, that the Governor and the Hoppo had boats that received opium at Lintin, and that the officials took a fee of twenty to seventy dollars a chest.[^29] The memorial also states: "We have no wish to see a revival of the opium trade," that most of the signers had signed a voluntary pledge to abstain from dealing in the drug, and that the drug had been "productive of much evil and of scarcely a single good to the Chinese." It continues that the signers could not "perceive the slightest ground for justification of the robbery committed upon British subjects here." It asks the government to act, if it thought fit, with Great Britain, France and Holland to obtain six demands: envoys at Peking, a fixed tariff, bonding warehouses, trade at other ports, compensation for the stoppage of trade, and limits on punishments of foreigners until Chinese laws were made known. Failing that, it asks for an agent or commissioner with a naval force to protect American commerce and to prevent any paper blockade. It names Snow as the consul whose despatches to the State Department would confirm the account and expresses "entire approbation" of his conduct.[^29] On April 25, 1840, as the British blockade was expected, a petition to Lin from American houses asking that their ships be allowed to come directly to Whampoa was signed by Augustine Heard and Company, Gideon Nye Jr., A. A. Ritchie, James Ryan, Henry W. Hubbell, Olyphant and Company, Russell and Company, S. W. Lewis, Henry Fessenden, John Shillaber and Isaac M. Bull.[^30] The Chinese Repository gives Lin's reply as a declaration that it was an "egregious mistake" to think the English contemplated a blockade.[^30] The treaty between the United States and China was signed at the village of Wanghia (Mong-Ha in Hunter's spelling) at Macao on July 3, 1844, by Caleb Cushing and Qiying. Hunter, who dates the signing, described the two signatories as together the end of Old Canton.[^31] ### Opium, Houqua and the Chesapeake in 1840 Hunter records that in 1840 Russell and Company bought the British ship Cambridge, renamed her Chesapeake under the American flag, and loaded her with British goods valued at £150,000 for Whampoa. On June 22, 1840, as H.M.S. Volage took up a station off Chuenpi, she sailed past it, and she was the last vessel to enter the port.[^32] When the Chinese authorities then sought a large foreign ship to anchor above a raft across the river, they applied to Warren Delano Jr., "the then chief of Russell & Co.," who had never left Canton. The Chesapeake was made over to the mandarins, her American papers were removed, and the officials fitted her out as an auxiliary defence.[^33] Forbes's account gives the firm a separate position on the opium trade itself. He wrote that between January and July 1840 Russell and Company "controlled considerable operations" for the Canton merchant Houqua, whose shipments were made in the firm's name and were known to the consignees to be for his account. When it became certain that the English government would make stringent demands on China, it was "arranged to buy all this property amounting to millions, and account to him for the returns," so that the shipments could not be seized in England, and the firm took its usual commission.[^34] He also wrote that the firm considered it important to keep a pledge made by John Cleve Green and that it had nothing to do with opium "between 1840 and 1844," a period he placed outside his own tenure.[^35] Forbes also wrote about the money. He said the price of the surrendered drug was contested, one side arguing that it had cost $400 or $500 a chest and the other that it sold for $250 or $300 at the time of seizure.[^35] He wrote that "most of the smaller holders of scrip were great losers, and that the large agents, who sold mostly on commission, turned their attention to speculation in scrip and in the drug itself, and made large fortunes."[^35] He also wrote that he sent out the schooner Anglona for Russell and Company in early 1841, and that she raced the Ariel from Macao Roads round Lintin.[^36] Hunter, for his part, records that Houqua liked to compare himself with "that famous house" with which, through Russell and Company, he had had years of important business. Hunter's footnote identifies the phrase "Ba-Blo" as Baring Brothers & Co.[^37] The city of Canton was ransomed in 1841, after Sir Hugh Gough's British forces took the heights above it. Hunter gives the ransom as six million dollars, five million of which were paid on the 31st, and the Hong merchants contributed two million dollars toward it, of which Houqua gave 1,100,000.[^38] For Houqua's share, Captain Elliot received three promissory notes drawn by Russell and Company at thirty days in favour of Houqua, who endorsed them to Elliot's order. The notes, for 400,000, 400,000 and 300,000 dollars, were deposited for collection with Jardine, Matheson and Company and Dent and Company, and Russell and Company had moved its own office to Macao.[^37] Hunter writes: "At this time the last-named house held about two and a half millions of dollars belonging to their constituent, the endorser." The sentence follows his statement that the offices of Jardine, Matheson and Company, Dent and Company and Russell and Company had been removed to Macao, and he says the notes were cashed, less a discount of a little under a thousand dollars.[^37] ### Railroads and the partners' American institutions Several of the partners turned to American railroads and institutions in the next decades. The editor of John Murray Forbes's letters, his daughter Sarah Forbes Hughes, writes that for the ten years before 1856 his business in ships and merchandise had been "gradually decreasing," that his work was "mainly devoted to the Michigan Central," and to the enterprise already, in 1856, known by its permanent title of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and that the ocean telegraph "was soon to do away with the old-fashioned China merchant."[^39] She quotes his notes that he was "undoubtedly very busy with the Michigan Central Railroad, and also with the small roads which then formed the embryo of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy."[^40] The two roads are the Michigan Central Railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. In 1857 the Michigan Central was in trouble. Forbes was called up from Naushon in October and asked to go to [London](/places/london/) to raise a loan of two million dollars, which the editor says might have prevented the railroad's bankruptcy.[^41] The letters print a resolution of the directors of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, dated October 18, 1898, which records their sorrow at Forbes's death.[^42] In the second volume he is described as chairman of the board of that road, with his cousin C. E. Perkins managing it.[^43] Samuel Russell turned to American investment after he returned to Middletown in 1831. The Library of Congress finding aid says that he founded the Russell Manufacturing Company for elastic webbing and that his real estate speculation reached [Chicago](/places/chicago/), Milwaukee, and land in Michigan, [Ohio](/places/ohio/), Kentucky, and [New Jersey](/places/new-jersey/).[^44] Of the later partners, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designation report for the Low Memorial Library at [Columbia University](/organizations/columbia-university/), given by Seth Low in honor of his father Abiel Abbot Low, says that the elder Low was a prominent tea merchant in the China trade who established an import business in 1849 and was associated with the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the founding of Newport News, Virginia.[^45] The Trustee minutes of [Princeton University](/organizations/princeton-university/) record that John Cleve Green gave $200,000 for the School of Science on September 20, 1872; the John C. Green School of Science was occupied in 1874 and destroyed by fire on November 26 and 27, 1928.[^46] The university's museum reference entry on Green says that by the time President McCosh retired in 1888 Green and his residuary legatees had contributed "upwards of a million and a half, perhaps two million dollars," and describes his China fortune as derived from tea and textiles and, after the end of the East India Company's monopoly, from the opium trade, enhanced by railroad investments.[^47] ### The Delano family The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library finding aid for the Delano family papers says that Warren Delano II sailed to China in 1833 as supercargo on the Commerce, became associated at Canton with Russell Sturgis and Company, and in January 1840 became a partner in Russell and Company. During the Opium War he remained in Canton and Macao and served as acting consul. The panic of 1857 brought severe losses, and in 1859 he returned to China to restore his fortune. His family, including the president's mother, joined him at [Hong Kong](/places/hong-kong/) in 1862, and he died at his house Algonac on January 17, 1898.[^7] The finding aid states that the papers include material on the history of Russell and Company's financial interests in China.[^7] Forbes's memoir records the terms of a later reorganization of the house in 1846, under which "W. Delano was to retire after a time" and Edward Delano remained a partner.[^48] The memoir adds that Edward Delano returned home in 1846.[^49] ### William Huntington Russell and the Russell name at Yale Franklin Bowditch Dexter's biographical sketches of Yale graduates give Matthew Talcott Russell as the second son of Rev. Noadiah Russell, Yale 1750, born in 1761. He settled as a lawyer in Middletown in 1786, served sixteen years as city treasurer, and in 1797 married Mary, eldest daughter of Rev. Enoch Huntington of Middletown. The sketch says their children were seven daughters and six sons, and that "The fifth son was graduated here in 1833."[^11] The Yale obituary record gives William Huntington Russell as the son of Matthew Talcott Russell (Yale 1779) and Mary Huntington Russell, born in Middletown on August 12, 1809.[^12] The 1856 act incorporating the [Russell Trust Association](/organizations/skull-and-bones/), the trust through which Skull and Bones conducts its corporate affairs, names William H. Russell, John S. Beach, Henry B. Harrison, Daniel C. Gilman, Henry T. Blake and Henry D. White as its first incorporators.[^50] A letter to the Yale Alumni Magazine by Bruce L. Reynolds in 2015 attributed the money for the society's 1856 building to Russell and Company, citing James Bradley's book on the China trade.[^51] ### Failure and closing The Library of Congress holds records dated 1812 to 1894, chiefly from 1819 to 1840, which were given to the library by Thomas Macdonough Russell in 1931.[^3] The Baker Library records of the firm are dated 1820 to 1891, and the Baker Library's Forbes family business records include papers on the creation of the Shanghai Navigation Company, a steamboat company on the Yangtze River.[^2] The second volume of the Forbes letters describes the last years of John Murray Forbes, who died in 1898. The editor, Sarah Forbes Hughes, writes that he was grieved by "the failure of his old house in China, Russell & Co., occasioned by some speculations in steamers and the close competition by German commission merchants." She adds that his friends, the "time-honored" Baring Brothers, had suspended payment, and that these events gave him "an actual physical shock."[^43] A footnote to that passage prints Forbes's letter of 1859 to the managers of the firm, which argued that its commission business alone could yield $200,000 a year net on a capital of $2,000,000, and that speculations of any sort would damage that capital.[^52] The Hong Kong Daily Press of July 22, 1891 reported a petition in bankruptcy before the Acting Chief Justice, E. J. Ackroyd. A Canton merchant petitioned "for the adjudication in bankruptcy" of W. H. Forbes, J. M. Forbes, A. W. Pomeroy, Chas. V. Smith and C. A. Tomes, "trading under the style of Russell & Co. at Hongkong and elsewhere." The petitioner's claim was for $1,044, and the court made an order adjudicating all the debtors bankrupts.[^53] The index to the Forbes letters lists J. Malcolm Forbes and William Hathaway Forbes as sons of John Murray Forbes; the records found do not establish whether they are the W. H. Forbes and J. M. Forbes named in the petition.[^54] On September 1, 1891 the Supreme Court of Hong Kong heard an application in a suit by No Chi Kiu and four others against Ng Woon Soon and others, which the report described as "a case arising out of the How Qua property and the failure of Messrs. Russell & Co." Counsel read an affidavit stating that Russell and Company became insolvent in June, that Hong Kong lots formerly registered in the Land Office as the property of John Murray Forbes junior had been registered in the name of a trustee for the creditors of Russell and Company, that an equitable charge by Russell and Company in favour of John Murray Forbes, trustee for How Qua, secured a sum in taels with interest at seven per cent, and that judgments of about $229,000 had been obtained against the partners in the late firm.[^55] The Hong Kong Telegraph of August 31, 1891 printed a letter signed A. B. McKean from the head office of the National Bank of China, Limited, in Hong Kong. It reported that at a statutory meeting of shareholders in London on July 30 "an informal resolution was passed in favor of winding up the Bank," that the bank's articles of association appointed "the late firm of Russell & Co." secretaries of the bank for fifty years on a commission on profits, and that "the failure of Russell & Co. in June, and their consequent inability to carry out their part, cancels this agreement." It stated that "Rumours, absolutely false, have been circulated to the effect that the Bank has sustained heavy losses owing to the failure of Russell & Co." and that counsel's opinion in London was that the resolution of July 30 was not binding on the bank.[^56] [^1]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 156-157 (house constitution, the Samuel Russell & Co. dates, the Kee-Chang-Hong name, the phrase on agency business, partner admissions and departures, Delano, Sturgis and Forbes). https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^2]: Heard Library, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, collection guide, "Russell & Company records," Mss:766, 1820-1891, 25 volumes, with the history paragraph on the 1831 merger, the Perkins and Company letter books and the firm's demise in 1891; same guide, Forbes Family business records, Mss:766 1803-1942. https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/heard/manuscript-collections.html [^3]: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, "Russell & Co., Guangzhou, China, Records," MSS38562, finding aid revised February 2024, collection summary, scope and content note, subject index, related material, container list. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms010075 and https://lccn.loc.gov/mm80038562 [^4]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), p. 150, the Lintin as Russell and Company's "receiving ship" from 1830 and the nine years her anchors were not raised. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^5]: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination, "Samuel Wadsworth Russell House," Middletown, Connecticut (designated 2001), section 8 statement of significance, pp. 8-11, drawing on Alain Munkittrick, "Samuel Wadsworth Russell (1789-1862): A Study in Ordered Investment," Wesleyan University honors thesis, 1973, which is based on the Russell & Company papers at the Library of Congress. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NHLS/70000688_text [^6]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 131-132, his plans in 1829-1830 for the command of the Lintin station, arranged with the Perkins family and Bryant and Sturgis, whom he calls "my powerful friends," and the Tartar then on the station. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^7]: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, finding aid for the Delano family papers, biographical introduction to Warren Delano II (1809-1898), pp. 1-2 of the PDF, and the description of the papers. The library's numbering is Warren Delano II; this page uses the name Warren Delano Jr. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/findingaid_delanofamily.pdf [^8]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), p. 223, his partnership in Russell and Company from January 1, 1840 to January 1, 1844 and from January 1, 1849 to January 1, 1857, and his service as vice-consul. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^9]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 122-123, the departure of Mr. Russell and Mr. Cushing from Canton in the Bashaw, February 27, 1831. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^10]: Franklin Bowditch Dexter, *Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College*, vol. II (1745-1763), sketch of the Rev. William Russell of Middletown, p. 90, born Middletown November 20, 1690, eldest child of the Rev. Noadiah Russell and Mary Hamlin; married Mary Pierpont August 19, 1719; four sons and five daughters, including the Rev. William Russell (Yale 1745) and the Rev. Noadiah Russell (Yale 1750). https://archive.org/details/biographicalsket02dext [^11]: Franklin Bowditch Dexter, *Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College*, vol. IV (1778-1792), sketch of Matthew Talcott Russell (Yale 1779), pp. 125-126. https://archive.org/details/biographicalsket04dextuoft [^12]: *Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College*, entry for William Huntington Russell, son of Matthew Talcott Russell (Yale 1779) and Mary (Huntington) Russell, born in Middletown, August 12, 1809. https://archive.org/details/1880t90obituary00yaleuoft [^13]: *The Hamlin Family: A Genealogy of Capt. Giles Hamlin of Middletown, Connecticut, 1654-1900* (1900), entries [302] for Capt. John Russell (pp. 118 to 119), [307] for Matthew Talcott Russell (p. 119) and [638] for Samuel Russell, born at Middletown August 25, 1789, with the descent lines "(John, Samuel, William, Mary Hamlin, Giles)" and "(Noadiah, William, Mary Hamlin, Giles)". https://archive.org/details/hamlinfamilygene00andr [^14]: Kris Millegan (ed.), *Fleshing Out Skull & Bones: Investigations into America's Most Powerful Secret Society* (Trine Day, 2003), opening article ("His cousin Samuel Russell's family enterprise"), pp. 151 to 152 ("General William Huntington Russell, Samuel Russell's cousin"), p. 313 ("Samuel Russell, second cousin to Bones founder William H.") and p. 52 ("drug money provided by his uncle, Samuel Russell"). https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones [^15]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 118-119, the death of Thomas T. Forbes and S. H. Monson on August 9, 1829, the sealed letter to Russell and Company, Cushing's return in August 1830 and the appointment of Russell and Company as sole agents. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^16]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 1, editor's note on Cushing and the Perkins business at Canton, roughly p. 62. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect01forb [^17]: Library of Congress finding aid MSS38562, box 9, account books, 1816-1829, with the entry for "Notes on the Chinese Method of Preparing Opium for Smoking." https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms010075 [^18]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 123-124, the voyage to Smyrna fitted out at New York by Sturgis and Perkins to procure Turkey opium for China. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^19]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 124-125, the Smyrna consignment to Joseph Langdon, the Barings credit, the convoy from Vourla under the schooner Porpoise, the passage to Gibraltar, and the brig Leander and Joseph Peabody. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^20]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 142-144, the store-ships at Lintin, the smuggling boats, the mandarin boats, the annual value of the trade, and the government's encouragement of opium from India and Turkey. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^21]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), p. 159, the commission account and gains of the Lintin from January 1 to the closing of the port. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^22]: *The Chinese Repository*, vol. 7, no. 12 (April 1839), "Crisis in the Opium Traffic," the proceedings of March 21, 1839 (letter of the General Chamber of Commerce to the Hong merchants, W. S. Wetmore, chairman) and the edict of April 1, 1839. https://archive.org/details/chineserepositor7121unse [^23]: *The Chinese Repository*, vol. 8, no. 1 (May 1839), the edict to Elliot, Johnston, Snow and Van Basel and the commissioner's reply on the American consul's declaration. https://archive.org/details/chineserepositor8118unse [^24]: *Correspondence relating to China*, presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty (London, 1840), enclosure 21 in no. 146, Captain Elliot to the Imperial Commissioner, Canton, March 28, 1839. https://archive.org/details/CorrespondenceRelatingToChina1840 [^25]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 146-147, the surrender of British-owned opium in the name of Queen Victoria, the schedules issued chest by chest, the nominal value of 20,283 chests, the American hong with Mr. P. W. Snow, United States consul, Russell and Company, and Russell, Sturgis and Company, and the strict guard over the foreign community. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^26]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), p. 144, the 15,501 chests given up by May 2, 1839, and the completed total of 20,283 chests on May 21. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^27]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), p. 146, the statement that the Americans had not delivered any American-owned opium and held about fifty cases of Turkey at the time of surrender, and the sentences on the English placing theirs in charge of the American houses and on the share that fell under the control of Russell and Co. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^28]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 145-146 and note 1, the half-commission discussion and the charge foregone on the quantity delivered up by Russell and Company, nearly 15,000 dollars. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^29]: U.S. House of Representatives, 26th Congress, 1st session, H. Doc. 40, "Merchants of the United States at Canton, China. Memorial of R. B. Forbes and others," January 9, 1840, referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs (U.S. Serial Set vol. 364), pp. 1-4, with the signatures dated Canton, May 25, 1839. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/SERIALSET-00364_00_00-030-0040-0000 [^30]: *The Chinese Repository*, vol. 9, no. 1 (May 1840), the petition of American houses at Canton dated April 25, 1840 and the commissioner's reply. https://archive.org/details/chineserepositor9118unse [^31]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 154-155, the treaty of the United States signed at Mong-Ha (Macao) on July 3, 1844 by Mr. Caleb Cushing and Ke-Ying. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^32]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), p. 147, the purchase of the Cambridge, her renaming as the Chesapeake under the American flag, the British cargo, the sailing past the blockade station on June 22, 1840, and her arrival as the last vessel to enter the port. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^33]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), p. 147, the application to Mr. Delano, "the then chief of Russell & Co.," the sale of the Chesapeake to the mandarins and her fitting out as an auxiliary defence. https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^34]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 161-162, the operations controlled for Houqua between January and July 1840, the purchase of the shipments to prevent their seizure in England, the shipments made in the firm's name, and the commission charged. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^35]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), pp. 160-161, the dispute over the price of the surrendered opium ($400 or $500 a chest against $250 or $300 at seizure), the passage on the holders of scrip and the speculators who made large fortunes, and the pledge made by Mr. Green with the statement that the firm had nothing to do with opium between 1840 and 1844. This is Forbes's own account. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^36]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), p. 302, the schooner Anglona sent out in early 1841 for Russell and Company and her race with the Ariel from Macao Roads round Lintin. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^37]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 46-47, the three promissory notes of 400,000, 400,000 and 300,000 dollars drawn by Russell and Company in Houqua's favour, the deposit with Jardine, Matheson and Company and Dent and Company, the sentence beginning "At this time the last-named house," the discount, and Houqua's remark "My all same, 'Ba-Blo.'" https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^38]: W. C. Hunter, *The "Fan Kwae" at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844* (London, 1882), pp. 45-46 (the Hong merchants' contribution of 2,000,000 dollars and Houqua's share of 1,100,000 dollars) and p. 150 (the ransom of six million dollars, five million paid on the 31st). https://archive.org/details/fankwaeatcanton00huntgoog [^39]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 1, p. 160, the editor's text on John Murray Forbes's business in the 1850s, the Michigan Central, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and the ocean telegraph. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect01forb [^40]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 1, p. 138, quoting Forbes's notes. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect01forb [^41]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 1, pp. 168-169, the October loan request in London to prevent the Michigan Central's bankruptcy during the crisis of 1857. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect01forb [^42]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 2, Appendix A, resolution of the board of directors of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, October 18, 1898. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect02forb [^43]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 2, pp. 224-225, the editor's account of the chairmanship of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy board, C. E. Perkins, the failure of Russell and Company and the suspension of Baring Brothers and Company. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect02forb [^44]: Library of Congress finding aid MSS38562, scope and content note on Samuel Russell (1789 to circa 1862) of Middletown, the Greek Revival mansion letters of 1827-1830, the Russell Manufacturing Company, the 1831 return to Middletown, and the land speculation subjects. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms010075 [^45]: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Designation List 139, LP-1118, "Low Memorial Library Interior," February 3, 1981, history of the donor. https://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1118.pdf [^46]: Princetoniana Museum, The Trustees of Princeton University, reference entry "John C. Green School of Science," citing Trustee Minutes of September 20, 1872, with the dates of occupancy (1874) and destruction by fire (November 26-27, 1928). https://www.princetonianamuseum.org/reference/5ef15e9b-6369-491c-a2e0-cc20b816db83 [^47]: Princetoniana Museum, The Trustees of Princeton University, reference entry "John C. Green," including President McCosh's farewell report of 1888. https://princetonianamuseum.org/reference/b5388d91-1efc-4e01-ace3-3b5d7a6e3774 [^48]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), p. 168, the 1846 reorganization terms under which W. Delano was to retire and Edward Delano was to remain a partner. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^49]: Robert Bennet Forbes, *Personal Reminiscences* (1882), p. 355, the return of Edward Delano in 1846. https://archive.org/details/personalreminis01forbgoog [^50]: Connecticut Secretary of the State, certified copies (March 28, 2001) of "An Act incorporating Russell Trust Association" (1856), resolution amending the charter (July 1870), and resolution confirming the by-laws (approved March 24, 1887). The act names William H. Russell, John S. Beach, Henry B. Harrison, Daniel C. Gilman, Henry T. Blake and Henry D. White as the body corporate, with the power of the General Assembly to amend or repeal it. [^51]: Bruce L. Reynolds '66, letter, "More secrets of the Tomb," *Yale Alumni Magazine*, responding to the May/June 2015 article, citing James Bradley, *The China Mirage* (Little, Brown, 2015). The passage is the letter writer's account. https://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4127-more-secrets-of-the-tomb [^52]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 2, p. 225 and note 1, Forbes's letter of 1859 to the managers of Russell and Company. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect02forb [^53]: *Hong Kong Daily Press*, July 22, 1891, p. 2, "In Bankruptcy," before Mr. E. J. Ackroyd, Acting Chief Justice. https://archive.org/details/NPDP18910722 [^54]: Sarah Forbes Hughes, ed., *Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes* (Boston, 1899), vol. 2, index, p. 244, entries for J. Malcolm Forbes and William Hathaway Forbes, sons of J. M. F. https://archive.org/details/lettersrecollect02forb [^55]: *Hong Kong Daily Press*, September 2, 1891, p. 2, Supreme Court, 1st September, before Sir James Russell, Chief Justice, No Chi Kiu and four others v. Ng Woon Soon, Creasy Ewens and Ng Chau Fong. https://archive.org/details/NPDP18910902 [^56]: *Hong Kong Telegraph*, August 31, 1891, p. 3, letter to the editor from the head office of the National Bank of China, Limited, signed A. B. McKean. https://archive.org/details/NPTG18910831 --- *The Info Web has an MCP server for agents at https://theinfoweb.org/mcp (streamable HTTP, no auth): search by meaning, exact text, source or date, and follow typed, footnoted connections. Setup and the same tools over GET: https://theinfoweb.org/llms.txt*