BIOGRAPHY: RUSSELL, "Uncle" Martin - Lincoln County, Kentucky

Submitted by Shari Horton, Email Registry ID#
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00007.html#0001533

This article appeared in the Stanford, KY paper, written by Joe F. Waters.
The date is unknown, but at the time, Governor Bradley was Governor of the
state. (Governor Bradley served from 10 Dec 1895-12 Dec 1899.)

Postmaster John W. Rout says that Dr. Steele Bailey is of the oinion that to
retrospect, or as he expresses "root up old paths," since old things become
new, is what suits the majority of people. "Uncle Martin" Russell,
Milledgeville, sent word to come out and see the gun that Daniel Boone
started to Kentucky with May 1, 1769 from the valleys of the South Yadkin.
"I intended to get John Blain, when he was county clerk, to put something in
the papers about my collection of relics," said Mr. Russell, "but I put it
off too long and poor John has gone from earth." In front of Mr. Russell's
residence stands an old mill to digress a moment, where 60-odd years ago the
late lamented Mr. Horace Withers served as the first book-keeper after its
erection. Daniel Boone's gun was bought by Mr. Russel from William Wrecks,
one of Boones' men, near Campbellsville, in 1847. The barrel alone measures
four feet one inch and with the length of the stock added it is as tall as
Harvey Holm or French Tipton. On a certain Kentucky tree, history says was
inscribed these words,"2,300 deer skins lost -- ruination by God." Capt.
Boone, who used this gun and had killed a large number of the deer mentioned
above, found out that his party were too heavily loaded and at a point on
Green River they built a skin house and stored away the above number.
Returning some time after, the party ascertained that the Indians had
destroyed and carried away their 2,300 deer skins and a member of the party
put the above laconic inscription on a tree. The gun is a daisy looking one
yet and "Uncle Martin" says he has tried to miss targets with it, but
couldn't. In addition to the gun, he has an old-fashioned grease lamp that
he got from the same fellow he did the gun. It has a hook on it showing
that it could be hung up on any bush or give light under any circumstance
and is quite a curiosity. This lamp, he thinks must be 125 years old and no
one who sees it will doubt that assertion.

Mr. Russell also has the gun that his grandfather, Absalom Russell, who he
says Messrs. D. W. Vanderveer and W. P. Tte will remember, fought with in the
Revolutionary War.

"Uncle Martin" has a plate that has been in his family 115 years, a
counterpane made by his mother 75 years ago, his grandfather's dog irons
made in 1815; the "springs" of the first pleasure vehicle ever seen in this
section, a "gig" as it was called and which was owned by Col. Lackey, the
father of Hon. G. A. Lackey. This vehicle, Mr. Russell says would get up as
much excitement at any time as a circus parade along any thoroughfare in
these days. He also has the identical wagon owned by Tom Baker, who 60
years ago, with four horses hitched to it, hauled produce from this section
to Louisville for the people and merchants scattered round over the county,
when trains were unknown, and who also hauled in this wagon salt to all
parts of the country from the then famous Goose Creek Salt Works.

He has a set of carpenter's tools 55 years old; a set of shoe-maker's tools
owned by Jordan Russell 80 years ago; deer skins from those killed in his
park by soldiers away back in the bloody days of the war; a clock owned by
his father 90-odd years ago; a Poland Angus hide that looks as old as the
hills; a mill stone that was used in a mill in Stanford, near the Bridge on
the Hustonville pike; owned by Thomas Helm, 80 years ago; a petrified
hornet's nest about 75 years old; buttons put on his father's coat by a
tailor 46 years ago; a looking glass 40 years old; a lot of the first papers
ever printed in Danville; a gold tooth pick 51 years old; a brass kettle 105
years old; tow pairs of pants made from flax he bought at Kate Carpenter's
sale 50 years ago, and so on indefinitely.

It will pay Dr. Bailey, for instance who likes to "root up old paths," to
visit "Uncle Martin" Russell and hear him expatiate upon his relics, all of
which he appreciates very highly and about which he talks entertainingly.


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