Alexander Lord Russell (Papers, 1924)
"Alexander Lord Russell" is a memoir of the surveyor A. L. Russell by his Port Arthur partner H. K. Wicksteed, printed in the 1924 annual of the Thunder Bay Historical Society. Russell, a founding officer of the society, died at Ottawa on 11 June 1922.[1]
What it covers
Wicksteed traces Russell's life from his birth at Kingston in November 1842, as the son of Andrew Russell, long a senior Crown Lands official, and cousin of the surveyor Lindsay Russell. He joined the Civil Service Rifle Corps in 1861, served in the 1866 Fenian Raid, wrote a rifle-shooting handbook in 1869 and in 1870 went with Wolseley on the Red River expedition, later reading a paper on it to the society. He qualified as an Ontario land surveyor on 16 April 1873, helped mark the 49th parallel boundary, assisted in the triangulation of the prairie meridians and married Aurora Caroline Codd at Winnipeg in 1876.[1]
He then settled in Port Arthur, where he and Wicksteed ran a surveying business, subdivided much of the early city and surveyed mining claims, reserves and railway rights of way. Russell served as a town councillor and school trustee, started the Current River Park and its water-power scheme, was paymaster and then captain of the 96th Algoma Rifles and won rifle matches into his seventies. The memoir ends with an assessment of his character and a list of his surveys for Ontario and the Dominion.[1]
Key Thunder Bay facts
- Russell lived in Port Arthur for about forty years, until about two years before he died.[1]
- In 1912 he was elected captain of the Lake Superior Imperial Veterans, who were inspected by the Duke of Connaught.[1]
- He was credited with originating the Current River Park and water-power development.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 H. K. Wicksteed, "Alexander Lord Russell", Papers of the Thunder Bay Historical Society, 1924 (Thunder Bay Historical Society, Fifteenth Annual Report), pp. 25–28 (scan pp. 91–94). archive.org.