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William Huntington Russell

Yale 1833 graduate who co-founded Skull and Bones, was first-named incorporator of its 1856 charter, ran a New Haven military school, and was a Connecticut legislator and militia major general.

Also known as
William H. Russell, W. H. Russell, General William Huntington Russell, General Russell
Dates
1809–1885
Location
New Haven, Connecticut
Mentioned on
4 pages
Last edited

William Huntington Russell (August 12, 1809 to May 19, 1885) was a New Haven schoolmaster, a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, a major general of the Connecticut militia and a collector of internal revenue. Lyman Bagg wrote in 1871 that the Yale University senior society Skull and Bones was "originated in 1832" and that "General Russell, the valedictorian of that class, is its reputed founder"; later accounts name him as its co-founder with Alphonso Taft, and the 1856 act that incorporated the society's trust names him first among the incorporators.123 He founded the Collegiate and Commercial Institute in New Haven and headed it until his death.4

Family

Russell was born in Middletown, Connecticut on August 12, 1809, the fifth son of Matthew Talcott Russell and Mary Huntington.56 His father, born in Thompson on March 19, 1761, graduated from Yale in 1779, served as a tutor from November 1782 to May 1786, settled in Middletown as a lawyer, was for some years state's attorney for Middlesex County and for sixteen years city treasurer, became a deacon in 1798, and died at Winchester, Connecticut, on November 13, 1828. He was named for Colonel Matthew Talcott of Middletown, who had married his aunt and met the expenses of his education.7 Mary Huntington was the eldest daughter of the Rev. Enoch Huntington (Yale 1759) of Middletown, and she died on June 9, 1857, nearly eighty-eight years old. The couple had seven daughters and six sons, and the fifth son graduated from Yale in 1833.7

Yale's obituary notice of Russell describes him as "a descendant from one of the founders of the College, each link of the descent having been in his turn a graduate and officer of the institution."5 The line runs through the Rev. Noadiah Russell, born at New Haven on July 22, 1659, a Harvard University graduate of 1681, one of the founders of Yale College, a framer of the Saybrook Platform and from 1688 the second minister at Middletown. In February 1686 he married Mary Hamlin, daughter of Giles Hamlin of Middletown.8 Their son William was the father of the Rev. William Russell (Yale 1745, pastor at Windsor from 1751 to 1775), of Capt. Samuel Russell, a Middletown merchant, and of the Rev. Noadiah Russell (Yale 1750, pastor at Thompson from 1757 to 1795), the grandfather of William Huntington Russell.9

Yale, Princeton and the Medical Institution

Bagg wrote that the society's founders belonged to the class that graduated in 1833 and that Russell was "the valedictorian of that class."1 David A. Richards wrote in the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2015 that the conception of the society "seems to have been that of the 1833 valedictorian, class orator, and secretary of Phi Beta Kappa, William Huntington Russell," and that Russell, Taft and their four cofounders were all members of Phi Beta Kappa.2 The Connecticut Alpha chapter's catalogue of August 1838 lists William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft among the members of the class of 1833, each marked "Tut. Y.C.," and names "William H. Russell, M.D." as the chapter's corresponding secretary for 1837 and 1838. Of the fourteen names in the Skull and Bones roster for 1833, the catalogue's list for the class carries six: John Campbell Beach, Noah Bishop, Robert Robertson, Russell, Taft and George Ingersoll Wood.1011

Russell taught at Princeton University in Princeton from September 1833 to May 1835, when he entered on a tutorship at Yale. He studied medicine while tutoring and received the degree of M.D. from Yale in 1838. He resigned the tutorship in September 1836 to open a family school for boys in New Haven, having married on August 29 of that year Mary E., daughter of Thomas Hubbard, professor of surgery in the Medical Institution of Yale College.5

Kris Millegan wrote that Russell "studied in Germany from 1831-32."12 Antony C. Sutton wrote that "When its co-founder, William Russell, was in Germany in 1831-2, there was no way he could have avoided Hegelian theory and discussion."13 Yale's record places him at Princeton from September 1833.5

The Founding of the Society

Bagg wrote in Four Years at Yale that the modern society system at Yale "began in 1832 when a strictly senior society called 'Skull and Bones' was established."14 His account of the society reads: "The society was originated in 1832 by fifteen members of the class which graduated the following year. General Russell, the valedictorian of that class, is its reputed founder, and the best known of his associates is Judge Alphonso Taft of Cincinnati. Some injustice in the conferring of Phi Beta Kappa elections seems to have led to its establishment, and apparently it was for some time regarded throughout college as a sort of burlesque convivial club."1 Bagg added that "the popular college tradition, that it was transplanted from a German university, is scouted by old neutral graduates as absurd," and that the society's catalogue places the founders in the "third decade of the second period," which "may seem to make in favor of the German university theory, in the minds of many," while "the blank space in place of the eleventh man's name in the list of the founders, may perhaps be thought a straw in the same direction."115 The members knew the society as "Eulogia," or the "Eulogian Club."16

Richards dated the founding to 1832 as well. He wrote that Russell, Taft and four cofounders, all of Phi Beta Kappa, invited eight classmates to join them; that the eight included "the only two members of the Class of 1833 from the Western states (Ohio and Illinois)" and "two of the class's seven members hailing from Southern states"; and that "eulogia is Greek for 'a blessing.'" A skull and crossbones drawn over a meeting notice on the chapel door gave the society its name, and its badge carried the number 322.2 The roster Sutton prints for the class of 1833 gives fourteen names: Samuel Henshaw Bates, John Campbell Beach, Noah Bishop, John Crump, Benjamin Franklin Davis, Rufus Erastus Hart, Asahel Hooker Lewis, Samuel Davies Marshall, Frederick Ellsworth Mather, Phineas Timothy Miller, Robert Robertson, William Huntington Russell, Alphonso Taft and George Ingersoll Wood.11

Sutton dated the founding to 1833. He wrote that the American chapter "was founded in 1833 at Yale University by General William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft who, in 1876, became Secretary of War in the Grant Administration."17 He reported the argument that "William Russell imported the society from Germany and so it has been argued the 322 stands for '32 (from 1832), the second chapter, of this German organization."18 He wrote that "By contrast, the two founding members, William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft, went far."19

Bagg recounted that the faculty once broke in on one of the society's meetings and was persuaded to spare it "by the intercessions and explanations of its founder, then serving as tutor among them."1 Russell's tutorship at Yale ran from 1835 to 1836.5

The German origin appears in a pamphlet on the 1876 break-in at the society's hall. Sutton reprints the pamphlet, which reads: "Bones is a chapter of a corps in a German University. It should properly be called, not Skull & Bones Society but Skull & Bones Chapter. General R[...] (Russell), its founder, was in Germany before Senior Year and formed a warm friendship with a leading member of a German society. He brought back with him to college, authority to found a chapter here. Thus was Bones founded."20 Millegan reprints the same account in Fleshing Out Skull & Bones.21 Sutton's comment on the pamphlet is that the society "is not American at all. It is a branch of a FOREIGN secret society."20

Bagg described the hall, erected in 1856, as "a grim-looking, windowless, tomb-like structure, of brown sandstone" on High Street near the corner of Chapel, and put the value of the premises at "upwards of $30,000."22 Richards described it as "a single forbidding, windowless block in Egypto-Doric style," whose cost was "later estimated at about $30,000."2

The 1856 Charter

The society held its property through a corporation chartered by the Connecticut General Assembly at its May 1856 session. The act, a certified copy of which the Connecticut Secretary of the State issued on March 28, 2001, resolved that William H. Russell, John S. Beach, Henry B. Harrison, Daniel C. Gilman, Henry T. Blake and Henry D. White were constituted a body corporate under the name of the Russell Trust Association "for the purpose of the intellectual and moral improvement of its members, and for that only." It capped the real and personal estate the association could hold at fifteen thousand dollars and fixed the first meeting at New Haven for the last Wednesday in July 1856.3 Bagg listed the same names with their class years ("William H. Russell of '33, John S. Beach of '39, Henry B. Harrison of '46, Henry T. Blake of '48, Henry D. White of '51, and Daniel C. Gilman of '52") and wrote that "the first of whom has since acted as president, the one next to the last as treasurer, of the association."1 The member named next to last is White, while Sutton wrote that "Gilman became Treasurer and William H. Russell, the cofounder, was President."23 Millegan gives the same arrangement: Gilman "incorporated Skull and Bones as the Russell Trust in 1856, with himself as Treasurer and William H. Russell as President."24 In the same passage Millegan places Gilman with Timothy Dwight and Andrew Dickinson White in a group of three Bonesmen who "formed a troika which still influences American life today."24

Sutton wrote that "the Russell Trust Association is run entirely by Patriarchs," and that the organization of the Order, as the association and as the Deer Iland Corporation, "is essentially geared towards the post graduation world."25

A resolution of July 1870 raised the ceiling on the association's property to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A resolution approved on March 24, 1887 validated a meeting held in November 1885 and the by-laws adopted there, six months after Russell's death. An act approved on July 9, 1943 raised the ceiling to seven hundred thousand dollars, and the members accepted it at New Haven on November 12, 1943, with Morris Hadley sworn as president.26

The Collegiate and Commercial Institute

Russell opened a family school for boys in New Haven in 1836. The school, in the words of Yale's obituary notice, "developed into 'The Collegiate and Commercial Institute,' having at times as many as 160 pupils, and educating in the aggregate some four thousand young men." The notice adds that "As early as 1853, it assumed the character of a military school," and that during the Civil War the school "was able ... to furnish about three hundred officers to the Union army, as well as many drill-masters to the volunteer companies in southern Connecticut."4

Bagg's glossary of Yale slang defines a "Russellite" as "a member of Gen. Russell's military school."27 Yale graduates taught at the school after college, and the Yale obituary records for 1870 to 1890 carry their entries. One taught there for a year before beginning theological study, another was "fitted for college" there, and a third taught in the school until he entered a tutorship in the college in January 1865.28

The state armed the school. The Quartermaster General's report of April 1, 1862 lists among the property issued to militia organizations "Wm. H. Russell's Military School, New Haven": one 6-pounder rifled bronze gun, its carriage and implements, and a caisson.29 The state's return of arms issued for 1871 lists "William H. Russell, New Haven Military School" with 107 cadet muskets and bayonets and 150 cavalry cartridge boxes and plates.30

Connecticut General Assembly and Militia

He "represented the town in the State Legislature" in 1846 and 1847.5 The Connecticut Register for 1847 lists the New Haven representatives as "William W. Boardman, William H. Russell," and lists a "Russell of New Haven" on the joint standing committee on education.31 The same register lists "Ebenezer Jackson, Samuel Russell" as the representatives for Middletown, the town to which Samuel Russell of Russell and Company had returned in 1831.3132

Sutton wrote that "William Russell was a member of the Connecticut State Legislature in 1846-47, a General in the Connecticut National Guard from 1862-70, and founded the Collegiate and Commercial Institute in New Haven, Connecticut."19 Yale's obituary notice states that "Gov. Buckingham appointed him in 1862 Major-General of the Militia of the State, and this position he held for eight years."5 The governor was William A. Buckingham. The Adjutant-General's reports list "William H. Russell, New Haven" as major general commanding the division of the Connecticut National Guard, commissioned July 31, 1862, with Lieutenant Colonel Francis Wayland of New Haven (commissioned July 30, 1864) as assistant adjutant general of the division and Lieutenant Colonel F. St. John Lockwood of Norwalk (commissioned September 16, 1862) as division inspector.3334 The report for the year ending March 1869 prints the commission date as July 31, 1866 and corrects it in its errata to July 31, 1862.35

On September 12, 1866 Russell's headquarters at Hartford issued the special order, signed by Major Edward W. Bacon as acting assistant adjutant general, directing Lockwood to make "a minute inspection" of the First Brigade, Brig. Gen. Prentice commanding, at the camp near Hartford on September 13 and 14; Lockwood reported to Russell on October 6, 1866 and to the Adjutant General, Charles T. Stanton Jr., on March 4, 1867.33 At the annual state military institute held near Hartford, where militia officers below the rank of colonel were instructed for five days, an educational visitor found Russell in charge: "General Russell, who has charge of the Institute, and commands the militia of the State."36 Adjutant General Colin M. Ingersoll quoted Russell's report to the governor of the previous year in his own report for the year ending March 31, 1871: "Our system is certainly the best we know of."37

Collector of Internal Revenue

Russell "held the office of Collector of Internal Revenue for five years from December, 1868."5 The Official Register of the United States for September 30, 1869 lists "William H. Russell" of New Haven as collector for the second district of Connecticut.38

Kansas and John Brown

The National Kansas Committee reported on January 25, 1857, through its assistant secretary Horace White. The report counted about two thousand emigrants forwarded to Kansas by the land route through Iowa and Nebraska, and money receipts by state, with $3,182.13 from Connecticut. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn printed the committee's membership in The Life and Letters of John Brown (1885). The list includes "W. H. Russell, New Haven, Conn." beside Samuel Cabot Jr., Thaddeus Hyatt and W. W. Hoppin.39 When the United States Senate select committee on the Harpers Ferry raid examined William F. M. Arny on January 16, 1860 and asked who sat on the committee for Connecticut, the answer was "W. H. Russell, of New Haven."40

On April 13, 1857, at Boston, John Brown signed a will that gave "all trust funds and personal property for the aid of the Free-State cause in Kansas" to George L. Stearns, Samuel Cabot Jr. and "William H. Russell, of New Haven, Conn.," in trust, "to them and the survivor or survivors and their assigns forever." The trustees were to administer the funds "entirely at their discretion."41

On March 18, 1858, John Brown Jr. met his father at Philadelphia, with Frederick Douglass and other men, and the two went on to New York and to New Haven, "where they called (March 18) at the house of Mr. W. H. Russell," before traveling on to North Elba.42

In a letter written on the Missouri line on the Kansas side, dated July 20, 1858, and addressed to Sanborn and friends at Boston and Worcester, Brown wrote: "Mr. Russell and other friends at New Haven assured me before I left, that if the Lecompton abomination should pass through Congress something could be done there to relieve me from a difficulty I am in, and which they understand." In a footnote, Sanborn explains the difficulty. Brown had contracted with Charles Blair to make a thousand pikes, had not completed the payment for lack of money, and feared the contract would be forfeited. "He therefore communicated the facts to Mr. Russell, who was then the head of a military school at New Haven, and had some assurance from him of money to be raised in Connecticut to meet this contract."43

Blair, a blacksmith of Collinsville, testified before the Senate committee in 1860 about the contract. Asked whether the whole weapon, including the screw that connects the handle and the blade, was furnished by the handle maker or by himself, he answered: "We furnished them all, although the ferules and the screw were made at New Haven. The malleable iron was made by a firm in New Haven."44

Other Russells appear in the same records. Sanborn places Brown at the house of "Judge Russell" in Boston in 1859, a judge whom the same volume names as the Hon. Thomas Russell, and Thomas Russell witnessed Brown's will of 1857.45 Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe told the Senate committee that George R. Russell of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, was "one of our wealthy, liberal men."46 The committee's narrative of the raid names Israel Russell, a justice of the peace at Harpers Ferry taken hostage by Brown's party, and Major Russell of the United States Marine Corps, who reached the town with the marine detachment.47 These are different men from William H. Russell of New Haven.

The Russell Family and Samuel Russell

Samuel Russell, born at Middletown on August 25, 1789, was the son of Capt. John Russell (born August 19, 1765; married Abigail Warner at Middletown on June 29, 1788; died there December 7, 1801), who was the son of Capt. Samuel Russell, the Middletown merchant who was a brother of the Rev. Noadiah Russell (Yale 1750). John Russell and Matthew Talcott Russell were therefore first cousins, and their sons Samuel Russell and William Huntington Russell were second cousins, with William Russell, the son of the Yale founder, as their common great-grandfather.948 Samuel Russell married first Mary Osborn and then her sister Frances Ann Osborn; he was a merchant "for many years in the China trade" and a member of the firm of Russell and Company; his children were George Osborn, John Augustus and Samuel Wadsworth Russell, and his widow Frances founded the Russell Library in Middletown.48

Samuel Russell lived from 1789 to about 1862. The Library of Congress holds the firm's papers, which date Russell and Company from 1819 at Canton. After his return to Middletown in 1831 he founded the Russell Manufacturing Company for elastic webbing and speculated in real estate at Chicago and Milwaukee and in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and New Jersey; the papers include correspondence on the Turkish opium trade.32

Millegan describes the firm's origins. He wrote that "In 1823, Samuel Russell established Russell and Company for the purpose of acquiring opium in Turkey and smuggling it to China," and that the firm "merged with the Perkins (Boston) syndicate in 1830 and became the primary American opium smuggler." He named Warren Delano Jr. as one of the firm's chief operators at Canton, "grandfather of Franklin D. Roosevelt."49 Millegan also listed other partners of the firm. In his account they included "John Cleve Green (who financed Princeton), Abiel Low (who financed construction of Columbia), Joseph Coolidge and the Perkins, Sturgis and Forbes families."49

Millegan states the relationship three ways in the same book. The opening article refers to "His cousin Samuel Russell's family enterprise," and the China-trade passage reads "William Huntington Russell (S&B 1833), Samuel's cousin, studied in Germany from 1831-32." An essay on the Connecticut families reads "Samuel Russell, second cousin to Bones founder William H., established Russell and Company in 1823." In "Reflecting on the Yale Succession," written as an account of a conversation with his father, he writes that Russell, "valedictorian of the Yale class of 1832," "had founded Skull and Bones with drug money provided by his uncle, Samuel Russell."125051 A chart in the book describes Samuel Russell as "undisputed king of Middletown" during the formative years of Skull and Bones and names Governor Henry W. Edwards as "Protector of Samuel Russell's opium-financed enterprises, patron of William Huntington Russell's new secret society Skull and Bones."52 The essay on the Connecticut families lists the Russell, Pierpont, Edwards, Burr, Griswold, Day, Alsop and Hubbard families as the "multiply-intermarried grouping of families then ruling Connecticut."50

Death

Russell was stricken by apoplexy at New Haven on May 10, 1885, and the stroke "proved fatal on the 19th of the same month." "General Russell retained his place at the head of his school, and his powers remained almost untouched by age, until his last brief illness." His wife survived him, "with six of their ten children, two daughters and four sons," and the sons were all graduates of Yale.53

Later Members

Sutton places Taft's later offices beside Russell's career. He lists Taft as Secretary of War in 1876, Attorney General in 1876 to 1877, minister to Austria from 1882 to 1884 and ambassador to Russia in 1884 to 1885.19 Later members of the society include Henry L. Stimson (class of 1888), W. Averell Harriman (class of 1913) and Prescott Bush (class of 1917).5455

Relationships 16

Founded
  • Skull and Bones, from 1832, co-founder with Alphonso Taft; Bagg (1871) and Richards (2015) date the founding to 1832, Sutton to 18331
  • Collegiate and Commercial Institute, from 1836, family school for boys in New Haven, later the Collegiate and Commercial Institute4
Head of
  • Collegiate and Commercial Institute, 1836–1885, head of the school until his death53
  • Skull and Bones, from 1856, president of the Russell Trust Association23
Member of
  • Phi Beta Kappa, 1833–1838, Yale chapter (Connecticut Alpha), class of 1833; corresponding secretary 1837-183810
  • Connecticut General Assembly, 1846–1847, representative for New Haven31
Appointed
  • William A. Buckingham, 1862–1870, major general of the Connecticut militia, commissioned July 31, 186233
Employed by
Took part in
  • National Kansas Committee, from 1857, listed member of the committee39
  • John Brown, from 1857, named trustee of the Kansas Free-State funds under Brown's will of April 13, 185741
Relative of
  • Matthew Talcott Russell, child7
  • Noadiah Russell8
  • Samuel Russell48
  • Thomas Hubbard, from 18365

Sources

  1. Lyman Bagg, Four Years at Yale (New Haven: Henry Holt, 1871), pp. 145 to 147, on the Russell Trust Association, the names in the act with their class years, the founding of the society by fifteen members of the class of 1833, "General Russell, the valedictorian of that class," the faculty break-in, the German tradition and the society's catalogue. https://archive.org/details/fouryearsatyale00baggrich ↩
  2. David A. Richards, "The origins of the tomb," Yale Alumni Magazine, May and June 2015, on the 1832 founding, the "1833 valedictorian, class orator, and secretary of Phi Beta Kappa," Taft as cofounder, the eight invited classmates, the Eulogian Club, the number 322 and the 1856 hall. https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4072-the-origins-of-the-tomb ↩
  3. Connecticut Secretary of the State, certified copy (March 28, 2001) of "An Act incorporating Russell Trust Association" (1856), as reprinted in Kris Millegan (ed.), Fleshing Out Skull & Bones: Investigations into America's Most Powerful Secret Society (Trine Day, 2003), "RTA, Incorporated, a Shell Game," pp. 693 to 694. https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  4. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, deceased from June, 1880, to June, 1890, entry for William Huntington Russell (class of 1833), p. 241, on the family school, the Collegiate and Commercial Institute, its pupils and its military character. https://archive.org/details/1880t90obituary00yaleuoft ↩
  5. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, deceased from June, 1880, to June, 1890, entry for William Huntington Russell, p. 241, on his birth at Middletown on August 12, 1809, his descent from a founder of the college, Princeton from September 1833 to May 1835, the tutorship, the M.D. of 1838, the marriage of August 29, 1836, the legislature of 1846 and 1847, the militia appointment of 1862 and the collectorship. https://archive.org/details/1880t90obituary00yaleuoft ↩
  6. The Hamlin Family (1900), entry [307] for Matthew Talcott Russell, his marriage at Middletown on September 17, 1797 to Mary Huntington and the list of their children, including William, born August 12, 1809, p. 119. https://archive.org/details/hamlinfamilygene00andr ↩
  7. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, vol. 4 (July 1778 to June 1792) (New York: Henry Holt, 1907), sketch of Matthew Talcott Russell (Yale 1779), pp. 125 to 126. https://archive.org/details/biographicalske05dextgoog ↩
  8. The Hamlin Family: A Genealogy of Capt. Giles Hamlin of Middletown, Connecticut, 1654-1900 (1900), entry [1] for Mary Hamlin and the Rev. Noadiah Russell, p. 36, and entry [307] for Matthew Talcott Russell, p. 119 (descent "Noadiah, William, Mary Hamlin, Giles"). https://archive.org/details/hamlinfamilygene00andr ↩
  9. The Hamlin Family (1900), entries [97] (Rev. William Russell), [98] (Capt. Samuel Russell, merchant, who died March 14, 1794) and [99] (Rev. Noadiah Russell, clergyman at Thompson 1757 to 1795), pp. 87 to 88. https://archive.org/details/hamlinfamilygene00andr ↩
  10. Catalogue of the Connecticut Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa, August 1838, list of officers for 1837-8 ("William H. Russell, M.D. Cor. Secretary") and list of members of 1833, pp. 39 and following. https://archive.org/details/catalogueofconne00phib ↩
  11. Sutton (1983), roster of members by class, "Founders" and class of 1833. https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  12. Kris Millegan (ed.), Fleshing Out Skull & Bones (2003), opening article ("His cousin Samuel Russell's family enterprise was the largest American opium smuggler") and the China-trade passage reading "William Huntington Russell (S&B 1833), Samuel's cousin, studied in Germany from 1831-32." https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  13. Sutton (1983), passage on Hegelian theory: "When its co-founder, William Russell, was in Germany in 1831-2, there was no way he could have avoided Hegelian theory and discussion." https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  14. Bagg (1871), p. 52, on the origin of the secret-society system at Yale and the "modern system, which began in 1832." https://archive.org/details/fouryearsatyale00baggrich ↩
  15. Bagg (1871), p. 147, on the catalogue of the society, "Period 2. Decade 3," and the blank space for the eleventh founder. https://archive.org/details/fouryearsatyale00baggrich ↩
  16. Bagg (1871), p. 153, on the members' name for the society, "Eulogia," or the "Eulogian Club." https://archive.org/details/fouryearsatyale00baggrich ↩
  17. Sutton (1983), Memorandum Number Two on the origins of the Order, opening passage on the American chapter and its 1833 founding. https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  18. Sutton (1983), passage on the number 322 and the argument that "William Russell imported the society from Germany." https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  19. Sutton (1983), passages on the two founding members ("By contrast, the two founding members, William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft, went far"), on Russell's Connecticut legislature and National Guard service, and on Taft's later offices. https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  20. Anonymous pamphlet on the 1876 break-in at the society's hall, as quoted in Sutton (1983), Memorandum Two, including "General R[...] (Russell), its founder, was in Germany before Senior Year," and Sutton's comment that Skull & Bones "is not American at all. It is a branch of a FOREIGN secret society." https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  21. Millegan (2003), reprint of the 1876 pamphlet on the break-in at the hall. https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  22. Bagg (1871), p. 145, description of the hall erected in 1856 "on High street, near the corner of Chapel." https://archive.org/details/fouryearsatyale00baggrich ↩
  23. Antony C. Sutton, America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones (1983), chapter on Daniel C. Gilman, stating that "The Order was incorporated as The Russell Trust in 1856" and that "Gilman became Treasurer and William H. Russell, the cofounder, was President." https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  24. Millegan (2003), chapter on Daniel Coit Gilman, passage reading "with himself as Treasurer and William H. Russell as President." https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  25. Sutton (1983), passages on the Russell Trust Association, "the Russell Trust Association is run entirely by Patriarchs," and the organization of the Order "essentially geared towards the post graduation world." https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  26. Connecticut Secretary of the State, certified copies (March 28, 2001) of the resolution amending the charter (July 1870), the resolution confirming the by-laws (approved March 24, 1887), the act of July 9, 1943 and the certificate of acceptance of November 12, 1943, as reprinted in Millegan (2003), pp. 694 to 695. https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  27. Bagg (1871), p. 47, glossary entry for "Russellite." https://archive.org/details/fouryearsatyale00baggrich ↩
  28. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College, deceased from June, 1870, to June, 1880, entries on pp. 270 and 369, and Obituary Record for 1880 to 1890, p. 524. https://archive.org/details/1870t80obituary00yaleuoft ; https://archive.org/details/1880t90obituary00yaleuoft ↩
  29. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1862, report of the Quartermaster General (John M. Hatheway), April 1, 1862, statement [I], p. 58. https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso1862conn ↩
  30. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1871, statement [G] of arms and equipment issued ("William H. Russell, New Haven Military School"). https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso18711conn ↩
  31. The Connecticut Register and Official State Calendar for 1847 (Hartford, 1847), House of Representatives by town (New Haven and Middletown) and the joint standing committee on education ("Russell of New Haven"). https://archive.org/details/connecticutregis1847hart ↩
  32. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, "Russell & Co., Guangzhou, China, Records," finding aid (MSS38562), on Samuel Russell (1789 to about 1862), the firm, his return to Middletown in 1831, the Russell Manufacturing Company, his real estate holdings and the Turkish opium correspondence. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms010075 ↩
  33. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1867, Adjutant-General's report of April 1, 1867, p. 16 (staff of the division: "William H. Russell, New Haven, Commissioned July 31, 1862"; Francis Wayland, assistant adjutant general; F. St. John Lockwood, division inspector) and pp. 39 to 40 (special order of September 12, 1866 and the inspection of the First Brigade). https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso18671conn ↩
  34. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1870, Adjutant-General's report, p. 9, division staff ("William H. Russell, New Haven, Commissioned July 31, 1862"). https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso18701conn ↩
  35. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1869, Adjutant-General's report for the year ending March 31, 1869 and errata ("Page 8. Maj. Gen. William H. Russell, commissioned July 31, 1866, read July 31, 1862"). https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso1869conn ↩
  36. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1869, educational report, passage on a visit to the state military institute at Hartford and a conversation with General Russell. https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso1869conn ↩
  37. Public Documents of the State of Connecticut, 1871, Adjutant-General's report for the year ending March 31, 1871 (Colin M. Ingersoll), p. 6, quoting Russell's report to the governor of the previous year. https://archive.org/details/publicdocumentso18711conn ↩
  38. Official Register of the United States, September 30, 1869, list of collectors of internal revenue, Connecticut, second district: William H. Russell, New Haven. https://archive.org/details/sim_united-states-official-register-of-the-united-states_1869-09-30 ↩
  39. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown: Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1885), p. 352, the report of the National Kansas Committee dated January 25, 1857, its receipts by state and its list of members. https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofjoh00sanb ↩
  40. United States Senate, Report of the Select Committee of the Senate Appointed to Inquire into the Late Invasion and Seizure of the Public Property at Harper's Ferry, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., S. Rep. No. 278 (June 15, 1860), testimony of William F. M. Arny, January 16, 1860, p. 76. https://archive.org/details/reportselectcommi00unit ↩
  41. Sanborn (1885), pp. 385 to 386, text of John Brown's will dated Boston, April 13, 1857. https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofjoh00sanb ↩
  42. Sanborn (1885), p. 451, account of the travels of John Brown Jr. and his father, March 1858. https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofjoh00sanb ↩
  43. Sanborn (1885), pp. 475 to 476, letter of John Brown to F. B. Sanborn, Missouri line, July 20, 1858, and Sanborn's footnote on the contract with Charles Blair. https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofjoh00sanb ↩
  44. S. Rep. No. 278 (1860), testimony of Charles Blair, p. 127. https://archive.org/details/reportselectcommi00unit ↩
  45. Sanborn (1885), pp. 385 to 386 (witnesses to the will of April 13, 1857, including Thomas Russell) and p. 508 (Brown at "Judge Russell's house" in Boston in 1859, and "the Hon. Thomas Russell's address"). https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofjoh00sanb ↩
  46. S. Rep. No. 278 (1860), testimony of Samuel G. Howe, pp. 166 to 167, on the direction to the house of George R. Russell at Jamaica Plain. https://archive.org/details/reportselectcommi00unit ↩
  47. S. Rep. No. 278 (1860), report of the committee, narrative of the invasion, on the hostages (Israel Russell, justice of the peace) and the marine detachment accompanied by "Major Russell, of that corps." https://archive.org/details/reportselectcommi00unit ↩
  48. The Hamlin Family (1900), entry [302] for Capt. John Russell (son of Samuel, William, Mary Hamlin, Giles), pp. 118 to 119, and entry [638] for Samuel Russell, born at Middletown August 25, 1789, "for many years in the China trade" and member of the firm of Russell & Co., p. 166. https://archive.org/details/hamlinfamilygene00andr ↩
  49. Millegan (2003), passages on Russell and Company, its 1823 founding for the opium trade, its 1830 merger with the Perkins syndicate and Warren Delano Jr. at Canton. https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  50. Millegan (2003), essay on the Connecticut families and the origins of the Order, pp. 313 to 314 ("Samuel Russell, second cousin to Bones founder William H.") and pp. 151 to 152 ("General William Huntington Russell, Samuel Russell's cousin"). https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  51. Millegan, "Reflecting on the Yale Succession," Fleshing Out Skull & Bones (2003), p. 52, passage recounting the author's conversation with his father and the words "had founded Skull and Bones with drug money provided by his uncle, Samuel Russell." https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  52. Millegan (2003), chart and notes on the Russell family of Middletown and the Connecticut families, pp. 321 to 325 (notes 10, 14 and 15). https://archive.org/details/fleshing_out_skull_and_bones ↩
  53. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, deceased from June, 1880, to June, 1890, entry for William Huntington Russell, pp. 241 to 242, on his place at the head of his school, the stroke of May 10, 1885, his death on May 19 and his survivors. https://archive.org/details/1880t90obituary00yaleuoft ↩
  54. Sutton (1983), index of members by class year: class of 1888 (Stimson, Henry Lewis) and class of 1913 (Harriman, William Averell). https://archive.org/details/americas_secret_establishment-skull_and_bones ↩
  55. George Mosher Murray and others, History of the Class of Nineteen Hundred and Seventeen, Yale College, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917), biographical entries including Prescott Sheldon Bush, pp. 105 to 106. https://archive.org/details/historyofclassof00murr ↩

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5 shared · Organizationvia William Howard Taft, Russell and Company, Skull and Bones
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3 shared · Personvia William Howard Taft, Skull and Bones
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3 shared · Personvia William Howard Taft, Skull and Bones
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2 shared · Personvia William Howard Taft, Skull and Bones
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2 shared · Personvia Skull and Bones
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2 shared · Personvia Skull and Bones
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