This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: RUSSELL/FARRAR/POTTER/BUTLER/ Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/oZEBAIB/3991 Message Board Post: Carlisle The Old Russell House. – Time, in its unceasing progression of years and decades and centuries, aided often by the vandal hand of man, has effaced many of the landmarks established by the early settlers of Carlisle. Few now exist, that date back beyond the commencement of the seventeenth century. The traditionary stake has decayed and fallen, and the stones have become imbedded In the earth. The long-lived oak, “blazed” in its sapling stage by the hatchet of the surveyor, has grown old, borne its “crests of ovenwood” and died, and the firm rock has been removed out of its place. A depression in the earth, a foot-worn slab, or an “aged-elm,” are the only monuments left to mark the site of many of the rude dwellings of those hardy pioneers. Some still stand whose antiquity has been disguised under a modern finish, and which have little to identify them with their past except the capacious chimneys and their solid almo! st indestructible framework. Here and there one still stands and retains enough of its original style and finish to render it an object of veneration and instruction and to teach us where and how they who reared them lived an toiled to provide and transmit so many of the privileges that we know enjoy. Among the spared relics there is not, perhaps, one more interesting and worthy of a visit, than the Russell house, now owned and occupied by Mr. E. J. Carr. It is situated in the south part of the town about one fourth of a mile east of the road leading to Concord, and stands on a sand bluff on the left bank of a small stream named in the early Massachusetts records Alewife river, and later called Spencer brook. Probably the first name given to it was suggested by the large quantity of the fish of that name that annually descended the stream and were used not only as an article of food but also as a fertilizer for the farms on its banks. The house was built about 1680. As originally constructed it was a single two-story house with two rooms on each floor about 20 feet square, with an entry between, 8 or 10 feet in length and as much in width. Subsequently a lean-to upon the back side of the main house of one story was added, and the roof on that side extended down ov! er the addition. There was a single chimney which was ten feet square at the bottom, and five at the top. The dimensions of the fire-places in each of the lower rooms were five feet in height, eight feet in width and four feet deep. The mantels over the fire-places and other main timbers are ten to twelve inches square of solid oak and as sound today as when drawn from the forest nearly two hundred years ago. The rooms were scaled up with boards two and three feet wide and in the space between the outer and inner boarding up to the second floor was filled with brick as a defence against the attack of Indians. The builder of the house was Benjamin Russell, who was born in Cambridge in 1643. He removed to that part of Concord now Carlisle in 1680, and commenced work on his house in that same year. He died in 1713, and his son James, born in 1695, succeeded him. He married Susannah Farrar, and died in 1773. James, his oldest son, inherited the estate. He was born 1723! ; married Mary Potter in 1750 in 1760, and died Aug 17, 1801. He was succeeded by a third James, who was born May 9 1775, and married Mary Butler. He disposed of the old homestead in 1826, and removed to Lowell, where he died in 1862. His surviving children are Dr. William Lambert Russell, a practicing physician of Barre, Professor James Sullivan Russell, the distinguished teacher of mathematics in the Lowell High School, and George Washington Russell, a well known carriage maker of Worcester. Several descendants of the Russell family, in the female line, still reside in this town, but the male line is unrepresented. The five generations of Russells that successively occupied the old place were respectable farmers; contented to fulfil the duties of good citizens, and never aspiring to places of responsibility or distinction. The second James Russell held a lieutenancy in the French and Indian War of 1755, and did good services in the war of the Revolution. A few years subsequent to its sale by Mr. Russell the old place fell into the possession of “Ai,” a well known sportsman, who fired the famous shots that made him so well known to the readers of the Journal, during the years of its occupancy by him he extended a welcome hospitality to his brother sportsmen of the vicinity, and many sense of mirth and high wassail by the “Old Minrods” of Lowell were witnessed in his spacious rooms. The present owner of the place is a progressive man. He has built a capacious and convenient barn, renovated some of the dilapidated fences, and is fast bringing back the neglected fields to their original fertility and productiveness. We hope his energies may find sufficient scope in this direction, to divert for many years to come the hand of improvement from being laid too heavily on the venerable old mansion. Since its massive timbers were joined together, the Indian has gone to other hunting grounds, the bear has disappeared with the forests that gave him shelter, and the men and women of many generations have passed its portals never to return. An elm planted more than a century after it was reared has grown to giant proportions, and thrown its protecting arms over the old roof tree to guard it from the assaults of elements and men. Let us accept the omen and hope and pray for the preservation of the Old Russell House. (Note) The old Russell house did not survive the 20th century and was torn down.