Martha Russell née York, (1864-1940)

Headstone GPS Coordinates:

Birth: 11 September 1864, Josephine County, Oregon

Death: 31 May 1940, Port Orchard, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: William J. Russell

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: William Morris (Virginia)

Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards

 

Martha (“Mattie”) Russell née York was born on September 11, 1864, in Josephine County, Oregon, into one of Southern Oregon’s pioneering families. The second of fourteen children born to Henry M. York and Sarah Elizabeth Slagle, Mattie grew up on her parents’ farm near the town of Williamsburg. 

Mattie’s father, Henry M. York, had been born in Clay County, Kentucky. At age twenty, in 1850, he left his family’s farm and traveled west to California in search of gold. By early 1852, he had made his way to Southern Oregon, becoming one of the first gold rush seekers in Josephine County. He spent several years mining and packing in the region’s early camps.

Meanwhile, Mattie’s mother, Sarah Slagle, journeyed west along the Oregon Trail from Dade County, Missouri, with her parents and siblings. They traveled via the Barrow Road—the Oregon portion of the trail that passed south of Mount Hood—eventually arriving in Josephine County on April 22, 1852. Together, Henry and Sarah established their homestead and raised their large family, giving Mattie deep pioneer roots in Southern Oregon.

On November 27, 1862, in the same county where Mattie was born, William Jerome Russell, Jr. entered the world. He was the son of William Jerome Russell, Sr., a native of Northampton, England, and Elizabeth Harrow, born in Washington, Arkansas. William Sr. had emigrated from Liverpool, England, arriving in New Orleans on November 15, 1843, and was mining in Josephine County by the time of the 1860 federal census.

Elizabeth Harrow’s early life was marked by tragedy. As a small child, she traveled the Oregon Trail west with her family. In 1852, her mother died along the Snake River portion of the trail; later that August, her grandfather died in Umatilla, Oregon; and on October 12, her father died in The Dalles. Orphaned at just three years old, Elizabeth was taken in by the Perkins family, fellow emigrants from her wagon train, and was living with them in Josephine County by 1860. On February 20, 1862, Elizabeth, then thirteen, married William Russell, Sr., who was forty-nine. They had two sons: William Jerome Russell, Jr., and Orin Frederick Russell.

In 1891, Mattie married William Jerome Russell, Jr., who had spent several years working as a miner in Stevens County, Washington Territory, before returning to Josephine County. Their marriage united two families whose histories were closely intertwined with the earliest settlement of Southern Oregon.

Mattie and William established their life together in Josephine County, where they lived on a farm and raised their family. William worked first as a stock dealer and later served as sheriff of Josephine County. Together they had six children. By the 1910 Federal Census, three were living at home: daughters Audrey (born 1893) and Doris (born 1899), and son Charles Orin (born 1908).

In 1912, William received a federal land grant for eighty acres, further anchoring the family’s roots in the region. By 1930, however, Mattie and William had relocated to Myrtle Point in Coos County, Oregon, where they owned and operated a restaurant. Their daughter Doris, her husband, and children lived with them, and Doris worked as a waitress in the family business. Even in later years, Mattie remained actively involved in supporting her household and extended family.

At some point thereafter, Mattie and William moved to Seabeck, Washington, though the exact date and reason remain unknown. Their son, Charles Orin Russell, was living nearby in Crosby, Kitsap County, in 1930, working in the logging industry—perhaps drawing them northward.

William died of chronic endocarditis on September 17, 1938, in Seabeck at age seventy-five. He was buried in Seabeck Cemetery. Though there is no formal grave marker, a rock outline marks his resting place.

Mattie continued living on Camp Union Road in Crosby until she was admitted into the Kitsap County Hospital in Port Orchard because she had fallen and hit her head. Eight days later, she had a stroke and she died on May 31,1940, at the age of seventy-five. She was laid to rest beside her husband in Seabeck Cemetery.

Though neither Mattie nor William has a grave marker today, local historian Fred Just recorded their burial on a cemetery plot map. They rest in the southwestern corner of Seabeck Cemetery, between Julius Hintz and Raleigh Ames—pioneer descendants whose lives, like Mattie’s, were deeply rooted in the history of the Pacific Northwest.