Rev John RUSSELL, Jr.

1626 - 1692  (66 years)

• Name	John RUSSELL  [1]
  Prefix	Rev
  Suffix	Jr.
  Birth	24 Jan 1626	Ipswich, Suffolk, England   [1]
  Gender	Male
  FamilySearch ID	LKSZ-TBL
  Residence	Salisbury, Wiltshire, England   [2]
  Burial	1692	Old Hadley Cemetery, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America   [1]
  Death	10 Dec 1692	Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America   [1]
  Person ID	I594786176	Carney Wehofer 2024 Genealogy
  Last Modified	5 Jan 2025

  
  

  Father	John RUSSELL, of Cambridge and Hadley, MA,   b. Abt 1597, England d. 8 May 1680, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America (Age ~ 83 years)
  Mother	Phebe COLLINS,   b. 3 Mar 1604, Bramford, Suffolk, England d. 8 Jul 1642, Cambridge Cemetery, Middlesx, Massachusetts, British Colonial America (Age 38 years)
  Marriage	29 Apr 1624	Earls Colne, Essex, England   [3]
  Family ID	F536734384	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Rebecca NEWBERRY,   b. 1631, Yarcombe, Devonshire, England d. 21 Nov 1688, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America (Age 57 years)
  Marriage	1651	Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut Colony, British Colonial America   [2]
  Children	1. Rev. Jonathan RUSSELL,   b. 18 Sep 1655, Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut Colony, British Colonial America d. 21 Feb 1710, Barnstable, Barnstable, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America (Age 54 years)   2. Daniel RUSSELL,   b. Abt 1658, Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut d. Yes, date unknown   3. Rev Samuel RUSSELL,   b. 4 Nov 1660, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America d. 25 Jun 1731, Branford, New Haven, Connecticut Colony, British Colonial America (Age 70 years)   4. Eleazer RUSSELL,   b. 8 Nov 1663, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States d. 2 Jan 1691, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America (Age 27 years)   5. Katherine Susan RUSSELL,   b. 1665, Hadley, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America d. 1704, James, King William County, Virginia, USA (Age 39 years)   6. Daniel RUSSELL,   b. 8 Feb 1665, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America d. 17 Dec 1667, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America (Age 2 years)
  Family ID	F536734382	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	2 Jan 2025

  
  

  Family 2	Mary TALCOTT,   b. 1629, Braintree, Essex, England d. 1650, Wethersfield, Hartford, Connecticut Colony, British Colonial America (Age 21 years)
  Marriage	28 Jan 1649	Hartford, Connecticut, United States   [2]
  Children	1. John RUSSELL, III,   b. 23 Sep 1650, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, United States d. 20 Jan 1669, Hadley, Hampshire, Massachusetts, United States (Age 18 years)
  Family ID	F536734385	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	2 Jan 2025

  
  

• Notes

  Harvard graduate, and provided Harvard educations for 2 sons. John Russell (1626 – December 10, 1692) was a Puritan minister in Hadley, Massachusetts during King Philip's War. As such, he is part of the Angel of Hadley legend John Russell was born 1626 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England[1] and immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony aboard The Defence in 1635 with his father and brother as part of the Great Migration.[2] He graduated from Harvard University in 1645.[3] In 1650 he succeeded Henry Smith as the minister at Wethersfield, Connecticut. Seven years later controversy erupted over church membership, discipline, and baptism, with the church in neighboring Hartford being inclined toward Presbyterianism as opposed to Congregationalism. The Congregationalist minority in Hartford attempted to join Russell's church in Wethersfield; when the General Corte prevented the move pending efforts at reconciliation, the controversy spilled over into Russell's congregation. Finally, on April 18, 1659, the majority of Russell's congregation signed an agreement to depart from Connecticut for Massachusetts. In 1659 Russell led the dissenting Connecticut congregation that founded the town of Hadley on the east bank at a bend of the Connecticut River. Beginning in 1664, he sheltered the regicides Edward Whalley and William Goffe in his home. He secreted the two wanted men under the roof of his home for more than a decade at great peril to himself and his family, as King Charles II had numerous men searching the colonies for Whalley and Goffe.[4] Whalley died about 1675. Goffe was still alive during King Philip's War when, according to the Angel of Hadley legend, he allegedly came out of hiding to rally the townspeople during an attack before disappearing again. George Sheldon in his introduction to Sylvester Judd's The History of Hadley dubbed John Russell the "Guardian Angel of Hadley" because of his lengthy and perilous watch over the two regicides. Sheldon eloquently wrote of Hadley's minister: The greatest hero of Hadley, however, was of a still nobler and finer mold. Actuated by pure motives of humanity, sympathy and duty, and the loftiest pitch of patriotism, he patiently wrought in darkness and in silence. Through the anxious days and lingering nights of more than ten years, he bravely stood within a hand's breadth of the gates of ignominious death. He never faltered for a single hour, nor ever sought to shift upon another the burden and responsibility. Month after month, summer and winter, year after year, zealously watching and guarding his trust, John Russell was virtually a prisoner within his own hamlet. Under his very rooftree he was secreting Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the patriot judges who condemned to the scaffold that misguided and perfidious representative of the "divine right of kings," Charles I., of England. These two men were now proscribed; a price was set upon their heads, and a swift retribution awaited any who might relieve or conceal them. Any neglect of precaution, any unforeseen mishap to the premises, any single case of misplaced confidence, and both he and his guests were surely doomed to nameless torture and death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Russell_(clergyman)

  
  

• Sources

  [S1160] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch Family Tree (http://www.familysearch.org), ((http://www.familysearch.org)), accessed 2 Jan 2025), entry for Rev Samuel RUSSELL, person ID KCYB-MR6. (Reliability: 3). [S1160] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch Family Tree (http://www.familysearch.org), ((http://www.familysearch.org)), accessed 2 Jan 2025), entry for John Russell, person ID LKSZ-TBL. (Reliability: 3). [S1160] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch Family Tree (http://www.familysearch.org), ((http://www.familysearch.org)), accessed 2 Jan 2025), entry for John Russell, person ID LRS1-2ZK. (Reliability: 3).