Josiah Russell, farmer and stock dealer, was born in Claiborne (now Union) County, April 8, 1833, the son of Edward and Barbara (Graves) Russell, the former born in Virginia, and deceased in 1857 in this county, aged sixty years, and the latter born in North Carolina, now over eighty-five years old. The father came to Claiborne County with his parents, and became a wealthy blacksmith and farmer, and was a major of militia, and a Democrat. Our subject, the second of seven children, remained on the homestead, and helped to educate the children after his father’s death. He dealt in stock first, and after the war bought land, and became a farmer, but since 1877 has lived on his present farm, which he has greatly improved. In 1860 he married Sarah A., a daughter of William Johnston, and of five sons and five daughters two sons are deceased.
Source: History of Tennessee Containing Historical and Biographical Sketches of Thirty East Tennessee Counties. Illustrated, pp. 1146-1152. Published: Chicago and Nashville: The Goodspeed Publishing Co. 1887.
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