Samuel Wadsworth Russell (1789-1862) was a member of the first post-Revolutionary generation, a cohort who came of age with the new Republic. As Alexis de Tocqueville so acutely observed in Democracy in America, this generation was a new breed of modern men, who had to make their own way in the world. Generations of partible inheritance in Connecticut and other New England colonies, combined with extraordinary birthrates in the New World, had produced an acute land scarcity in the East, undermining a father’s primary role to provide for his offspring and his cultural authority in the social order. Landless sons looked for new economic opportunities, migrated to the cities to participate in commerce and industry, or perpetuated their farming heritage on the Western frontier. A few entrepreneurial adventurers like Samuel Russell traveled much farther afield. One of the few Americans to establish an independent merchant house in Canton, China, Russell successfully challenged the British dominance of the international silk, tea, and opium trade and established what became the largest and most successful American firm involved in the China trade throughout the nineteenth century.2 His Greek Revival mansion in Middletown stands as a testament to his financial success as a China trader. Upon his retirement from Russell & Company in 1836, Russell reinvested his enormous profits in industry, banking, and Western railroad stock. These investments allowed Russell to live in comfort for the rest of his life and leave a substantial inheritance for his widow and sole surviving son Samuel Wadsworth Russell, Jr., and also make large bequests to grandchildren and other relatives. Although much of Russell’s fortune was devoted to various philanthropies during his lifetime, at the time of his death in 1862, the estate was valued at $630,000. 
Even though the family’s impeccable colonial ancestry assured Russell a place in society, there was little else in his background to predict that this provincial youth would achieve such a measure of commercial success. William Russell (1612-1664), the first of the family in the New World, was one of the adventurers associated with the founding of the Saybrook and New Haven colonies in the early 1600s, and the progenitor of a long line of Connecticut divines. The family had come to Middletown when the Reverend Noadiah Russell (1659-1713), William’s son, was called to be the second pastor of the Congregational Church in 1698. One of the founders of Yale College and author of the Saybrook Platform (which reaffirmed Congregationalism as the established religion in Connecticut); Noadiah would be followed in his successful ministry in Middletown by 
his eldest son, the Reverend William Russell (b. 1690). The next generations produced several only moderately successful mariners, Samuel Wadsworth Russell’s grandfather, Captain Samuel Russell (b. 1727), 
2 The details of the history of Russell & Company are largely drawn from Alain Munkittrick, “Samuel Wadsworth Russell (1789-1862): A Study in Ordered Investment,” Honors Thesis, Wesleyan University, 1973, which was based on business records and correspondence in the Library of Congress (as well as published sources cited in the bibliography), but the interpretation and analysis of some specific events in Russell’s business career is the author’s. 
 the first of that name, and his father, Captain John Russell (1765-1801), who died insolvent. 
More distant relatives were quite prosperous; Russell’s middle name came from his great uncle, Jeremiah Wadsworth of Hartford, one of the wealthiest men of the early national period. Wadsworth, who had married the Reverend William’s daughter, Mehitable Russell, made his fortune during the Revolution as the Commissary General of the Continental Army and supplier of the French forces. Wadsworth, who died when Samuel was only 15, may have been an early role model, but there is no direct evidence that the nephew benefited from this distinguished connection. 
The biographies of Russell and Wadsworth, two self-made men, were strikingly similar. Both were orphaned at an early age, Russell only 12 when his father died, and neither boy had any expectations of a substantial inheritance upon his majority. Deprived of the college education that had been the birthright of the Russell family for generations and customarily provided for his contemporaries (including his younger brother Edward A.), Russell began his career as an apprentice clerk in Middletown at Whittlesley & Alsop, merchants engaged in the maritime trade. Wadsworth had been apprenticed to his uncle, Matthew Talcott, who had a similar establishment in Middletown prior to the Revolution. Since Middletown was a major Connecticut River port, with the largest foreign tonnage of all the ports between New York and Boston, Russell’s career choice may have seemed inevitable. However, in 1810, when Russell came of age and ended his apprenticeship, the city’s status as a major trading center was beginning to decline. Coastal trade was on the wane and the West Indies trade had been severely curtailed by Britain’s policy to restrict shipping between its colonies to British ships. Trade all but ceased during the War of 1812 as conflict erupted between the U.S. and Britain over America’s position as a neutral carrier in international trade and Britain’s practice of seizing neutral ships suspected of transporting goods for belligerent nations.3 
There were several ways for impoverished young men to succeed in the maritime trade. Becoming a ship’s captain by working up through the ranks could have its rewards, but the real fortunes were made in the merchant houses of Boston and New York where international trade consolidated after the war. Although marriage into a merchant family was a time-honored path to a partnership in an established house, Russell apparently hoped to succeed on his own merits. Leaving the care of his younger siblings in the hands of Samuel Wetmore, a relative on his mother’s side appointed their guardian in 1810, Russell left for New York. There he joined the firm of Hull & Griswold, one of many merchant houses established there by Connecticut men specializing in the movement and exchange of assorted goods and commodities. Russell was selected to serve as supercargo on a company ship bound for Spain in 1812. As supercargo, he was responsible for the sale of the cargo of flour valued at $25,000 and also the flour shipped on another company vessel bound for the same ports. Acting under a firm’s instructions as well as his own assessment of the current market conditions, Russell would oversee the final disposition of these cargoes upon arrival at the destination ports. Since the War of 1812 with the British was imminent, this was a highly risky venture to entrust to an untried 23-year-old. Under more normal circumstances, the proceeds would establish bills of credit for future transactions, or be invested in European goods. But, with the expectation that war with England would disrupt foreign trade and create a shortage of hard currency at home, Russell was instructed to invest all the proceeds in Spanish silver dollars. 
After a successful voyage, which ended in 1813, Russell made arrangements to buy and sell goods for Hull & Griswold on a commission basis. Acting as their commission merchant for the Middletown market, the first Russell & Company was founded in a building he had leased there before he sailed. In executing this contract, Russell established a business policy that he followed throughout his merchant career. Although with his proven business ability, Russell brought considerable human capital to the table, he never risked his own
money. His partners, in this case John Griswold and Samuel Wetmore, always supplied all the financing, even though profits (and losses) were shared equally. Since the partnership arrangement was not exclusive, Russell & Company was still free to do outside business with several other firms in Boston, Providence, and New York. 
In New York to drum up business, which included an unsuccessful attempt to establish a connection with John Jacob Astor, Russell met his bride-to-be, Mary Cotton Osborn.4 Somewhat surprisingly, although Mary was a daughter from a respectable Hartford family and a descendant of Cotton Mather, she was an orphan with neither dowry nor connections with the merchant trade. After they married in New York in 1815, the Russells and his sister-in-law Frances Ann Osborn returned to Middletown and took up residence with his widowed mother in the old family house on High Street. Russell was the sole support of a large household, which may have included an unmarried sister and his younger brother Edward, and by 1816, a newborn son. 
With his Middletown commission business showing little return--Connecticut River commerce had not yet recovered from the war--and his contract with Hull & Griswold coming to an end, Russell once again was forced to seek new opportunities. Wetmore, who had an interest in several Providence firms, Hoppins & Company and Edward Carrington & Company, recommended Russell for the position of supercargo on a ship bound for Savannah, which was owned by both firms. There, an assorted cargo, which included Chinese tea and dishware, was traded for rice, tobacco and cotton. Sending the ship on to Hamburg, Germany, where the goods would be sold, Russell returned home by boat and stage. How profitable the venture was for Russell is not known, but it led to the definitive moment in his career, a contract to carry out a commission business in Canton, China, on behalf of Edward Carrington and the Providence merchants. 
Arriving in China in 1802, Edward Carrington’s connection to the commercial community there was through Samuel Snow, also of Providence and one of the first prominent American commission merchants in Canton. When Snow returned to America, he turned over his business to Sullivan Dorr of Massachusetts and James Oliver of Philadelphia, both residents of Canton. Dorr then passed it on to Carrington who carried on a highly successful commission business before departing in 1811. His clientele included merchants from Providence as well as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Carrington was also one of the first American residents to establish a close relationship with a major Hong merchant.5 
The Hong merchants, know collectively as the Cohong, were a loosely structured merchant guild authorized by the imperial government to oversee all aspects of China’s foreign trade in Canton. In return for the right to conduct trade with the foreign ships entering Canton, the Hong merchant was responsible to the Chinese government for customs and was accountable for any violations of trade laws and regulations committed by the foreign merchants. As such, the Hong merchant would generally purchase much of the ship’s cargo, supply the products and commodities for the return voyage and serve as an important resource for the foreign merchants regarding various aspects of the Chinese system of commerce.6 
Although present in China since the early eighteenth century, the origins of the Cohong are uncertain. The system seems to have arisen out of the government’s low opinion of foreigners and merchants in general; an outlook apparently grounded in Confucian ideology and historical experience. The Chinese government, having no desire for direct contact with these groups, developed commercial practices and policies that served to sequester the foreign merchants conducting business on their soil. Thus the Cohong acted as a liaison between 
4 Some sources give her family name as Mather. 5 Downs, Jacques M. The Golden Ghetto: the American commercial community at Canton and the shaping of American China policy, 1784-1844 (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1997), 146-150. 6 Ibid., 22-25. Hao, Yen-p’ing. The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China (Berkely: University of California Press, 1986), 15-17. 
 foreign and Chinese merchants and served as a buffer between the Westerners and the Chinese government.7 
The Portuguese had been trading at Macao for almost 300 years when their monopoly was broken by the Dutch and the English in 1685. In 1757, by imperial edict, Canton became the sole port for foreign trade. Under the “Old Canton System” of foreign trade (1757-1842), the Cohong and the British East India Company, although dominant players, did not hold absolute monopolies over all foreign trade conducted in China. While the Hong merchants often handled the major export items of tea, silk and nankeen (a type of cotton fabric), this domain was occasionally shared with Chinese “outside merchants” or “shopmen” who supplied the foreign residents with other assorted necessities for everyday living. As well, the East India Company did not hold exclusive control over all British trade conducted in China. The “country trade” was a system by which private businessmen were authorized to conduct trade within the commercial domains of the East India Company. Also, there existed a number of “private traders”. These were British subjects in China, serving as representatives of other governments, who established agencies to receive and sell cargoes for various London companies. These “agency houses” were similar to the American commission houses.8 
Canton foreign trade was centered on the factories, located just outside the city walls and covering an area of about twelve acres. Essentially a compound of buildings where business was conducted, each factory consisted of several two-to-three story, interconnected buildings. They served as the foreign merchant’s place of business as well as his warehouse and residence. The factories also provided a place of worship and recreation. When Americans became more involved in the China trade after the Jay Treaty of 1794, which normalized trade relations with England, they encountered a very international community dominated by the East India Company. 
In addition to the British residents in Canton, there were at various times Arab, Indian, and Armenian merchants as well as traders from Denmark, France, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands.9 
Although silk and nankeen were important export products, from the late seventeenth through the nineteenth century it was the West’s voracious demand for tea that forged the strong commercial connection to China. Initially, with the exception of specie, there was no such equivalent demand for Western goods in China. Products such as fur, ginseng, and sandalwood were only profitable on the Chinese market for limited periods. Specie was, unfortunately, a difficult product to deal with. It was a prime target for pirates and required special handling and security facilities at the factories. As well, the prolonged use of specie as a medium of exchange for Chinese products was a drain on the silver reserves in the West. However, around 1800 China began accepting larger quantities of Indian goods and the demand for opium increased dramatically. With this change in the Chinese consumer market, opium soon became the one commodity that the West could consistently sell for cash or barter for tea and other products. Constantly in demand, opium soon replaced specie as a primary means of exchange in the China trade.10 
Russell arrived in Canton in 1819 under arrangements made by Edward Carrington and several leading merchants of Providence.11 At this time, British merchant houses dominated the Canton market, exporting most of the tea crop and importing opium from Turkey, India, and Persia. Opium was not legalized in China until 1858, but millions of dollars were made smuggling the drug into China in the early 1800s, especially by the British East India Company.12 The Hong merchants of Canton only occasionally enforced the ban on opium. In fact, they allowed the establishment of a highly developed smuggling operation on Lintin Island in the Canton 
	.	7  Downs, 72-79.  
	.	8  Hoa, 5-27.  
	.	9  Downs, 27, 44-45.  
10 Ibid., 65; 71, 105-107; 108-112. Hao, 35. 11 Downs, 162. 12 British gunboat diplomacy in the so-called Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 also forced China into accepting new treaties, which opened 50 new Treaty Ports and the interior to Europeans and missionaries, and resulted in the British occupation of Hong Kong. 
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 
estuary. Under the “Lintin System”, ships arriving off Canton would transfer their opium to a storeship at Lintin before proceeding upriver to the Whampoa anchorage. Chinese traders would buy opium chits in the Canton foreign factories some ten to twelve miles upriver from Whampoa, often paying in specie. The Chinese trader would then exchange the chits for opium stowed on the storeships at Lintin.13 The factory merchant could either keep the profits from his sale or he could reinvest the proceeds into export products, and the profits from these commodities could be applied to another shipment of opium or invested elsewhere. Only when smuggling became too overt or smugglers were inadvertently caught in the act were the Hong officially “embarrassed” and heavily fined by the mandarins in Peking. 
Americans, were for the most part excluded from the Indian and Persian markets by British control of sea lanes in the Persian Gulf, and thus restricted for a time to Turkish opium, which was exported through Europe and transshipped to China through American ports. As early as the 1790s American vessels were calling on Smyrna (modern Izmer), the principal port for opium exchange. By 1804 ships from Baltimore and Philadelphia were making regular calls. Americans initially purchased opium from the British and Greek houses there but as the trade developed, American houses began to be established to handle the American trade. At least four American merchant houses existed in Smyrna by late 1820. Principal figures associated with this early trade were brothers James and Benjamin C. Wilcocks who sailed for relatives R.H. Wilcocks and William Waln, all of Philadelphia. The Perkins brothers of Boston, who had been associated with the Turkish opium trade since the 1780’s, formally organized their Smyrna merchant house in 1816.14 As well, Benjamin C. Wilcocks was frequently associated with the Indian opium trade. Residing in China between 1808 and 1827, he made several trips to India where he conducted an extensive drug business with his largest Bombay client as well as other opium shippers. It is uncertain if Cushing and others associated with the Turkish business may have also explored the India opium market during this period. Both of these families would be associated with Russell during his tenure in Canton. 
During his first five years in China, Russell operated in accordance with the instructions provided by his Providence partners.15 Even though the terms of his Canton contract appeared quite liberal and a vote of confidence in an untried China agent, there was little risk involved for the Providence firms, which made an initial capital investment of only $20,000. All proceeds of sales in Canton were to be reinvested there, with Russell receiving a two-percent commission on all import and export business generated by every vessel consigned to the port that was owned by his co-partners. In addition they paid for Russell’s living expenses in China, and provided $500 per annum to support his family during his absence. At the end of the five-year contract, Russell would receive an equal share in the profits. With high hopes, Russell set out on the ship Fame carrying Indian cotton for sale in Le Havre or Amsterdam for bills of credit or specie, before proceeding to China around the Cape of Good Hope. Leaving Gibraltar in late June 1819, the ship arrived in the Portuguese port of Macao off Canton in September. A port of entry some 80 miles south of Canton proper, it was jointly governed with the Chinese and walled off from the mainland. Since foreign vessels were banned from Canton, Fame remained at anchor in Whampoa, some ten miles downstream, and Russell proceeded upriver on a small Chinese riverboat to the foreign compound on the banks of the Pearl River. 
It was obvious from the tenor of the partners’ correspondence and the demands made on Russell, and especially their refusal to increase the trading fund, that they had little faith in Russell’s abilities as a commission agent. Since at least one partner, Edward Carrington, was very familiar with the complexities of the Chinese market, having been the American consul there in 1802-1804, their attempt to regulate the business from afar was 
13 Downs, 122-123. 14 Ibid., 114-115. 15 Ibid., 162. 
unrealistic. Although Russell, on his part, set up the company, leasing space in one of the so-called “factories,” where foreign traders worked and lived just outside the walls of Canton, and did his best to meet the partners’ requirements, there is no evidence that he participated in the opium trade. As a result, this first China venture was not particularly profitable, returning only about $15,000 to each of the five partners in 1823. 
As evidenced by his letters to his Providence partners, it is clear that Russell was quite conversant with all the details of the opium trade and may have planned to enter the market when conditions were more favorable.16 Although he often advised his partners on other trade possibilities, notably ginseng, which was well regarded by the Chinese and grown in New England, no imports were as highly valued as opium. In Russell’s opinion, “[opium] is the only article....which of late can be said to have a profit” in the depressed China market.17 While the Chinese characterized opium as “the dirt that despoiled its people,” only one American house refused to participate on moral grounds. Like most Europeans and Americans at the time, Russell simply saw the trade advantages. Indeed, with single drug cargoes selling for as much as $50,000, smuggling would have solved his cash problems and allowed him to compete with Perkins & Company of Boston and other American houses actively engaged in the Turkish drug trade. 
Although his first China venture was not commercially successful, Russell had made three valuable friendships that stood him in good stead in his remaining years in Canton. Chief among them was John Perkins Cushing, also orphaned at an early age and cousin to brothers James and Thomas H. Perkins of Boston. With earlier success in the opium and fur trade, the brothers had employed their cousin to work in the Canton end of their business under their associate Ephraim Bumstead. Upon the unexpected death of the senior associate, Cushing was left in charge of the Canton office at 16. Under Cushing, the firm of Perkins & Company was formally established in Canton in 1806.18 The Sturgis and Forbes families of Boston, long-time associates of Cushing and the Perkins family, would also have future dealings with Russell.19 The second influential friend and business partner was Philip Ammidon, agent for Brown and Ives of Providence, who had shared the Russell & Company “godown” (office) and Russell’s personal quarters. The third was his relationship with Houqua, the leading Hong merchant, who specialized in the tea trade, selling mostly to the British East India Company and to American firms, most notably Perkins & Company.20 Houqua would remain a life-long friend of Russell’s. 
When Cushing proposed to Ammidon that they enter into a partnership with Russell, whom he considered to be “one of the best men in the country,” a deal was soon struck between the three men. Russell went into partnership with Ammidon in 1824 and established Russell & Company exclusively as a commission house.21 Acting as a free commission agent, the company could do business with any merchant house in the world. More importantly, since Cushing and Ammidon had business connections in India, and the partners hoped to break the British monopoly in that region. Ammidon soon left for India carrying letters from Cushing and Houqua, leaving current business in Russell’s hands. The anticipated profits of even a share of the market were enormous; British imports of opium at that time averaged $15 million annually. Evidently Ammidon made some successful deals with the Parsi opium growers in India, for the partnership was renewed for another four 
16 Some of Russell’s reluctance was due to the turmoil in the drug market. Several highly publicized international incidents caused the Emperor to issue orders to his mandarins to rigidly enforce the opium ban and banish any Hong merchant involved in smuggling. Indeed the ensuing agitation of the Hong and their preoccupation with pacifying Peking during this period often interfered with normal trade. The most important incident, the “Emily Affair,” took place in 1821. After a member of the crew of this American ship was tried by the Chinese and executed for accidentally killing a Chinese woman, opium was found in a subsequent search of the vessel. 
When the Hong search of other ships at Whampoa uncovered large amounts of opium, the vessels involved were summarily sent off in ballast (sans cargo). Although old “China hands” did not take the event too seriously, when the ban on opium was enforced for at least 18 months, American vessels carrying the drug sold their cargoes in Manila and Java. 17 Russell & Company to Carrington & Company, June 30, 1821, Russell & Company Collection, Library of Congress. 
18 Downs, 119, 151. 19 Ibid., 155-157, 159-161. 20 Ibid., 152. 21 Ibid., 162.  years in November 1826, well in advance of the starting date, January 1, 1828, to allow Russell to return home. 
Since Russell was required to be back in Canton when the new contract commenced, only 14 months later, and much of his leave would be spent at sea, there was little time left to settle his family affairs. There had been several deaths in the family. Russell’s sister, Lucy W., who had married Henry G. Bowers in 1811, died in 1825. His wife, Mary, had died in childbirth soon after Russell first shipped out for Canton, leaving two sons in the care of their aunt, Frances Ann Osborn. During this visit, Russell and Frances were married and she became the mother of his third son, Samuel Wadsworth Russell, Jr. Other matters needed his attention. Finding the old mansion in disrepair, he began making plans for a new house, and even found time to solicit new consignment business in the United States, including most notably the sale of opium for John Jacob Astor. In April 1827, having spent only two months in Middletown, Russell sailed for China and was back in Canton by October of that year. 
The business records of Russell & Company for the second Chinese venture are incomplete. But it is known that Russell gained the commission business of the only two merchant houses in Manila and bought out some smaller competitors in Canton. As well, during this time while Russell & Company was growing into a very successful commission house, Perkins & Company was in the process of reducing its substantial and highly successful business. As early as 1818 Cushing began to turn over the company’s commission business to other Canton associates that included James P. Sturgis & Company, the Wilcocks representatives, and Russell & Company. This included Cushing’s opium shipments. In 1820 Cushing brought on his cousin Thomas Tunno Forbes to train for the business. Forbes, however, died in 1827 before assuming control of the firm. Cushing, eager for retirement and lacking another suitable heir, made arrangements to dissolve the firm. Honoring a sealed letter left by Forbes requesting that Russell take over all the business and with the knowledge that his cousin and Russell had had a successful dealings in the past, Perkins & Company was absorbed by Russell & Company.22 With the concurrence of the Perkins management, Russell, who had expected to leave China in 1830 delayed his departure to set up the management structure of the combined companies, still under the name of Russell & Company. 
During this time Ammidon had been on leave from the business. Unable to return in 1828, Ammidon provided Russell with William H. Low, a very capable replacement with business connections in Philadelphia and Salem. In 1830, when Ammidon was still unable to return to Canton, another replacement Augustine Heard of Boston, 
was recommended. Both Low and Russell accepted Heard and Ammidon was terminated from the partnership.23 Cushing, who had returned to Canton, was very influential in the merger and reorganization of the two companies. Under his direction Augustine Heard was made the representative of Perkins and their associated Boston firms. Robert Bennet Forbes was given charge of the Russell & Company storeship business on the Lintin station and John Murray Forbes was placed with the firm as an assistant in line for partnership.24 Both these men were relatives of the deceased Forbes. Upon completing their work in March 1831, both Cushing and Russell returned to America.. Although the business styles of the two firms had been quite different, they were still complementary. Perkins & Company had been primarily a buyer and shipper of China cargoes for their Boston clientele. Cushing orchestrated the entire trade and he and his partners were generally the owners of the products, which included opium. Russell and Company was exclusively a commission house and did not necessarily own the goods it handled. Rather, the firm provided services that included marketing of imports (including opium which it sold for Perkins & Company on their storeship) investing the proceeds, securing freight, negotiating bills, finding 
22 Ibid., 119, 151, 156-157, 159-161. 23 Ibid., 162. 24 Ibid., 164-165. 
By the time Ammidon left the firm, 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.26 In absorbing Perkins & Company, Russell & Company’s clientele base expanded to include the commission business of major firms in Providence, Boston, New York, Salem, and Philadelphia. As a “terminal general partnership”, the membership of Russell & Company changed frequently. Drawing from the ranks of friends and family, as partners attained their desired fortunes and retired, new associates were brought on to ensure the success of the firm.27 Thus, in less than a decade after Samuel Russell’s departure from Canton, Russell & Company had secured its position as one of the premier American trading houses in Canton through a succession of partners who brought with them considerable talents and valuable connections. 
Russell & Company continued to prosper as a major marketer of opium. Initially its Indian opium trade was only about half that of the Turkish trade but with the cancellation of the East India Company’s charter this trend was reversed. Undeterred by the first Opium War, carried on 1839-1842, the company with its own fleet of China clippers managed to hold its position in the Turkish trade and became the third largest purveyor of the drug from India. By 1842, Russell & Company had become the largest and strongest American house in China and it would continue to hold this premier position until closing in 1891.28 
In 1836, however, Russell had withdrawn from the company, asking the current manager to bring his China affairs to a close, with the request that his profits be invested in teas or bills of exchange on London. Upon hearing of his retirement, Houqua, the Hong merchant, wrote to Russell expressing his regret since “your name...has been associated with it [the house] during the whole course of its existence.”29 Acknowledging that Russell had earned a “competent fortune,” Houqua congratulated him on his success in life and concluded with his “sincere wish that you may live long to enjoy the fruit of your industry,” a reference to the mansion in Middletown. Known as the “China palace” for its rich Oriental appointments, including several gifts from Houqua, Russell lived there until his death in 1862. The company that carried his name lived on: ships from Canton flying the distinctive blue and white diamond flag of Russell & Company were found in all the major world ports well into the early twentieth century. The house, inherited by Samuel W. Russell, Jr., remained in the family until 1937, when it was deeded to Wesleyan University by his great-grandson, Thomas MacDonough Russell, Jr.