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Submitted by Cheryl VanWormer 







				ESTEVEN AND ROSETTA (TUPPER) RUSSELL.

	The ancestors of the gentleman above named were among the earliest settlers in that 
portion of the valley of the Connecticut embraced in what is now Franklin Co., Mass., and the 
family continued in that section for many years without emigrating, and became quite numerous.
	Esteven Russell was born at Sunderland, Feb. 28, 1817.  His father, Elihu Russell, had 
been twice married, and had nine children by his first wife and six by his second.  Of the 
latter, Esteven was the third born.  About the year 1818 the family emigrated to Monroe Co., 
N. Y., where its younger members grew to maturity.  Esteven worked summers on the farm, and in 
the winter engaged in shoemaking with his father, until he was about nineteen years of age.  With
 the aid of other members of the family, he conducted the affairs of the farm until about 1843, 
when he came to Odessa township, Ionia Co., Mich., and purchased forty acres of government land.
In 1852, having procured means for the journey, he proceeded to California <I>via</I> the Isthmus
 of Panama, arriving on the "golden coast" in December of that year, and entering at once the 
mining district.  In 1855 he returned home by the same route, but an injury received by the 
wrecking of the train on the isthmus caused him to remain in Michigan instead of going again to 
California.  Before leaving home he had exchanged his first purchase of land for seventy-five 
acres on section 27, and he began the improvement of this.  Nov. 4, 1860, he married Rosetta 
Tupper, the first white child born in the township of Odessa, and daughter of Myron Tupper, the 
first white settler in said township.  July 21, 1870, Mrs. Tupper died, leaving a family of three
children,--viz., Lina, born Sept. 23, 1863; Clayton, born March 15, 1866; and Pliny, born Sept. 
10, 1869.  A daughter, Eunice, next younger than Clayton, died at the age of six months.
	Mr. Russell now resides on the old home-farm, surrounded by a large circle of friends and 
relatives.  He has filled numerous offices in his township,--township clerk, supervisor, justice 
of the peace, overseer of the poor, etc.,--and was postmaster under President Lincoln.  In 1872 
he favored the election of Horace Greeley for President, and is at present a Greenbacker.
	Mr. Russell's mother, whose name was Warner, was also of English descent, the family 
having settled in the Connecticut valley as early as 1693, since which time the name appears in 
the church record.



This biography is taken from "HISTORY OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES, MICHIGAN" 
by John S. Schenck. Philadelphia:  D. W. Ensign & Co., 1881.  Pages 319-320.  Odessa.