MADISON COUNTY TN - OBITUARIES - William C. Russell 1878 ********************************************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Laurel Baty ********************************************************************************* Tribune Sun, Jackson, Tennessee, November 1, 1878, page 3, column 4: About Heroic Men. A private letter to Chief Jas. Marks from Brownsville, announces the death of his uncle, William C. Russell, a Memphis refugee. Mr. Russell went to Brownsville with his family, where he had a brother living when the yellow fever was declared epidemic in Memphis, and when the pestilence struck Brownsville, he determined to remain with his people and share their fortune. During the darkest days of the pestilence, he acted a hero's part and died at the post of self-imposed duty. We learn from the same letter, and from many other sources that Capt. Robert S. Russell, who is well known to many of our readers in this city, and who was born in Jackson, has been to the suffering people of Brownsville in this great pestilence, a most precious helper and hero in the strife of sickness and death. His gray horse, and brave Mike McGrath's black mare, were seen day and night in the direst hours of the plague, bearing their masters to the houses of stricken ones. Capt. Russell spent days and nights without taking off his boots, going from bedside to bedside administering to the sick and dying. He and Mike McGrath helped to bury every corpse, and visited every sick person, white and black, during the reign of the pestilence. History, song and story, tells not of men more heroic than these two. It is a matter of especial pride to us that Jackson is honored by being the birthplace and early home of stout hearted, kind Bob Russell. He evidently has in him a liberal share of the brave blood of his fearless grand-father, Col. Charles Sevier, whose fame as a daring and kindly man is a proud memory that is yet cherished in this county. When the people of Brownsville erect monuments to their bravest and noblest, the ones to Bob Russell and Mike McGrath, should be of the whitest and tallest. Their names should be forever enshrined in the hearts of that people, and no monuments of stone should be needed to keep their names and deeds alive forever. [William and Robert Russell are sons of Jesse Russell Sr. and Nancy D. Sevier Russell. Jesse and Nancy Russell had eight children: Robert S., William C., John S., Jesse Russell Jr., Margaret Russell Marks, Sarah Russell Barr, Mary Russell Allen, and Elizabeth Russell Prewitt.]