This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/BUB.2ACI/6026 Message Board Post: SAMUEL MILLS RUSSELL. One of Our Pioneers-Attended the First School Kept in the Town of Hume-The Senior Member of the Allegany Bar. The death of the venerable Samuel M. RUSSELL, which occurred on Friday of last week at Cuba, deserves more than a passing notice in our columns. Mr. RUSSELL passed the 86th milestone in life's journey on the 14th of February last, and was at the time, and had for some years past, been the senior member of the Allegany bar. His father, Captain Samuel RUSSELL, came from Canajoharie, Montgomery Co., and settled in Hume, then Nunda, (and later Pike) about 1809 or 10, bringing with him a family of six children. His sister, Caroline, taught the first school in the town of Hume in what is now the stable part of the barn of the late Philo MILLS at Mills Mills, then the center of business for quite an extent of territory. He and his brother, Oliver M. RUSSELL, were pupils of this pioneer school. This was in the summer of 1812, and Samuel M. must have been one of the younger lads at this school. The writer has heard him allude to this school with much pleasure, when his mind was called back to ‘the scenes of his childhood'. This county was indeed a howling wilderness at the time. The means for obtaining an education were very meagre, yet with the help of his father, mother and sister he acquired a pretty good stock of valuable facts of great practical value in the battle of life, and at 29 years of age he began a three years' course at Middlebury academy (the pioneer academic school of Western New York, or at least of the ‘Holland Purchase'), now Wyoming. This was the extent of his schooling. Leaving the academy, he taught school for a few years, and then entered the law office of the Hon. Timothy H. PORTER of Olean, where he remained four years, when Mr. PORTER having been elected to congress, he left Olean and resumed his studies with the Hon. Geo. MILES of Angelica, being admitted as an attorney of the supreme court by Chief Justice NELSON on the 13th day of January, 1837. He was admitted as counsellor at law October 29, 1841, by Judge NELSON, having previously been examined and ! admitted as solicitor in chancery by R. Hyde WALWORTH, chancellor of the state. In September, 1867, he was duly admitted and licensed in the United States courts. During his practice of the law he held, by the governor's appointment, several offices, among them that of supreme court commissioner and master and examiner in chancery. In December, 1842, he was appointed postmaster at Cuba, holding the office eight years. He settled in Cuba March 1st, 1834, and in June he married the second daughter of Dr. Gilbert H. CHAMPLAIN, a sister of the late Hon. Marshall B. CHAMPLAIN, and so has been a citizen of Cuba for over half a century. For some years he was associated with Robert S. ARMSTRONG, Esq., and Hon. M.B. CHAMPLAIN, and the well and extensively known law firm of CHAMPLAIN, ARMSTRONG & RUSSELL was for a long time one of the leading firms in the county of Allegany, which had a bar unexcelled for talent in all the western portion of the state. His sister, Cornelia, married the late Judge F.S. MARTIN of Olean. Another sister, Mrs. Permelia L'HOMEDEAU RUSSELL PENFIELD, is now residing in Fillmore in her 96th year. The youngest sister, Mrs. SWEETLAND of Kalamazoo, Mich., was with her brother at the time of his death. It is interesting to note the changes in the condition of things-social, educational and material-during the period covered by this man's life. He is the last of those who attended and took part, and whose names appear in the printed proceedings of the great railroad convention held in Cuba February 1, 1839, and was one of those who addressed it in support of the project of constructing the Erie railroad. The entire bar of Allegany county has with the exception of him and our venerable townsman, Elias E. HARDING, who I think must now be the senior member, made two complete changes since his appearance in our courts. Sic transit gloria mundi! The last call the writer made upon him was two weeks before his death. He was reclining on a couch, above him was an excellent portrait of M.B. CHAMPLAIN, while around about were likenesses of other members of his and the CHAMPLAIN and MARTIN families, all of whom were gone. He expressed himself as ‘Only waiting, waiting' for the change, and at last it came and he sank to rest ‘Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.' Peace to his ashes. Northern Allegany Observer obituary written by John S. Minard, 1894, from Cora Lahr's scrapbooks, Fillmore, NY